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IntroductionThe purpose of the database is twofold:
Many hills occur in more than one list, which may give slightly different heights or grid references. Where list authors appear to have chosen different locations for the summit, we have recorded this in the database. In cases where the locations could be regarded as separate summits we have listed the hills separately. This can be a subjective decision; we hope the majority of users will agree with our choices. We keep up with changes via correspondence with list authors and postings on the RHB e-group and The Nuttalls site. Most of the more recent promotions, deletions and relocations have been triggered by surveys by the database authors. We do not record changes to a hill's classification until confirmed by the list author. This can occasionally give rise to anomalies in the data, e.g. a few hills with an estimated drop of 140m are not classified as SubMarilyns. If you find any errors or wish to query any of the data, please email the authors at the address on the home page. ListsAs everyone knows, list making started in Scotland with Sir Hugh Munro in 1891. The Munros were joined by the Corbetts and Donalds and became well known thanks to their publication in Munro's Tables. It took a surprisingly long time for a definitive list of Scottish hills in the range 2000-2500 feet to appear, but in the 1997 edition of Munro's Tables the SMC adopted the list of Grahams which Alan Dawson had first published in 1992. Of Dawson's other Scottish lists, the Murdos and the New Donalds were motivated by a desire to bring objectivity to the classification of Munro Tops and Donalds. Breaking new ground was Corbett Tops and Corbetteers (1999). Corbett Tops are subsidiary summits of Munros and Corbetts within the Corbett height range. The most recent publication from this stable is Graham Tops and Grahamists (2004). This last list subsumes the New Donalds.Completions of the Munros are recognised by the SMC. Completions of Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds are recorded by the editor of TACit Press. The Nuttalls and the Hewitts (Hills in England, Wales and Ireland over Two Thousand feet high) are the most accurate and up-to-date of a succession of publications listing the 2000-foot summits of England and Wales. Some of the others are of historical interest but for practical use most people will have little reason to look beyond one of these two lists. However we acceded to requests to include Buxton & Lewis (1986) and Bridge (1973) although we do not reference them in the classification field. The last two lists are defined by the original publication and are not subject to revision. Those interested in the lists of Simpson, Moss and Wright are referred to Moss. The only significant differences between Moss's table and ours come from our decision to isolate the different locations given by Buxton & Lewis for Pen Pumlumon Llygad-bychan and Wether Hill. Completions of the English and Welsh 2000-foot hills are recognised by the Long Distance Walkers Association. It might be thought unreasonable to treat England and Wales as one country, but only The Nuttalls will record completions of one list without the other. The Deweys effectively extend the Hewitts down to 500m. They provide a worthwhile objective for those who have completed the 2000ft hills of England and Wales. Completions are recorded by the LDWA. The Marilyns was the first list to have a criterion on drop but none on height. Published in The Relative Hills of Britain in 1992, they have a growing band of devotees which includes the most obsessive peak baggers on the UK hillwalking scene. The completion of the 1556 Marilyns is a formidable challenge which because of the inaccessibility of some of the St Kilda's summits has yet to be achieved, but a tally of 600 is sufficient to join the Marilyn Hall of Fame. Marilyns have a minimum drop (reascent from another Marilyn) of 150m on all sides. They were supplemented in 2007 with the HuMPs (Hundred Metre Prominence) which reduces the minimum drop to 100m. There are 2989 HuMPs in v11.3; the total may fluctuate somewhat while the list matures. There are no qualification criteria for Wainwrights, which were almost certainly not conceived as a list, but a tradition of climbing them has developed and completions are recognised by the LDWA. The Birketts are a more recent listing of Lake District Hills. Keen baggers may be interested in a US led initiative to list hills worldwide with a drop of at least 2000ft (609.6m). Anyone who has climbed 100 of these is eligible to join the Century Club. For information see the Topographic Prominence website or join the prominence discussion group. There are 90 qualifying hills in Britain (formerly 91, but Ben Loyal is now regarded as falling short) and 20 in Ireland; members of the RHB e-group can download Rob Woodall's list from the Files section. Users of the relational Access database can easily query their total in Britain. In v11.2 we added the "Trail 100", a list of 100 hills published in Trail Magazine in 2007 which has become popularised by becoming the objective of the WaterAid Trail 100 charity challenge. It has required the addition of three new hills, one of which is Slieve Donard in Northern Ireland. DefinitionsMarilynsBritish hills of any height with a drop of at least 150 metres on all sides. The geographical area includes the Isle of Man and the islands of St Kilda. A Marilyn Twin Peak is a summit of equal height to another Marilyn where the drop between the two is less than 150m. The 2006 RHB update sheet lists eight "official" twins: An Stuc, Creag an Dhail Bheag, Buidhe Bheinn, Meall nan Damh, Sidhean a'Choin Bhain, Cnoc Coir a'Phuill, Cruachan Dearg and Middleton Hill. The consensus amongst baggers seems to be that for these hills at least, both summits should be climbed in order to claim the Marilyn. The summits listed in the second table of the RHB update do not make a strong case for being given a separate identity and are given as examples (not a complete list) of hills with two or more nearby points of apparently equal height. When we created the database in 2001, we included the (then) five hills in the second table as it was not clear to us (or to some other readers) that they did not qualify as Twin Peaks. However it became apparent that there are potentially many other hills in this category. Four more appeared in the 2006 update sheet, although the location of the summit of Ward's Stone has since been identified unambiguously by surveying, and Wendover Woods is an area of flat ground whose summit location is in doubt rather than a hill having two summits with a perceptible drop between them. Alan Dawson subsequently clarified that only hills in the first group have the status of Twin Peak. In v11 we removed the "Twin Peak" designation from the four hills in the second table (2190 Gwastedyn Hill had already been demoted following a survey), leaving only the eight "official" twins so classified. Alternative high points for other hills are noted in the Comments field. It is left to the walker to decide whether all such points should be visited; on some hills there are many candidates for the highest point and the exercise could degenerate into pedantry. Cruachan Dearg, Meall nan Damh and Sidhean a'Choin Bhain are also joint Grahams. The SMC lists Buidhe Bheinn as a separate Corbett, illogically in the opinion of many. Creag an Dhail Bheag does not receive the same status but is mentioned in the current edition of the SMC guide to the Corbetts.
HuMPs
Munros
Murdos
Corbetts
Corbett Tops
Grahams
Graham Tops
Donalds
A related list is Dawson's New Donalds, not given here, in which the qualifying criterion is simplified to 30 metres of drop. The New Donalds are a subset of the Graham Tops. Anyone who has completed the Donalds and Donald Tops will have visited all the New Donalds.
Hewitts
Nuttalls
Deweys
Wainwrights
Wainwright Outlying Fells
We mention that the task of producing a definitive list of summits is far from straightforward because of the many occasions when the location of Wainwright's summit is not coincident with the highest point in the vicinity. Often this is due to Wainwright's preference for designating a recognisable feature such as a cairn, but in other cases it stems from inaccuracies in the OS maps of the time. Where matters of interpretation come into play we have mentioned this in the Comments field. A few summits would benefit from a site visit for confirmation of the exact location. The list at the back of Wainwright's book contains 110 named fells and summits. Close inspection shows seven of them to refer to other hills in the list, while Newton Fell has two summits. Thus:
Birketts
County Tops
County boundaries change over time. There are different county lists, covering the traditional historic counties and the more recent mixtures of administrative areas. We provide three separate lists of county tops that we believe are the most commonly used in the pursuit of county top bagging:
For completeness, we have also provided a list of London Borough tops. In terms of administrative tier, these are at the same level as Metropolitan Districts. Twin peaks are listed for some County Tops. For further information on county history, see hill-bagging (England and Wales), hill-bagging (Scotland). Deleted TopsSometimes a hill that once appeared on a list is later removed. The most common cause is remapping, though many Munro Tops were deleted on subjective grounds. More recently, a number of Marilyns, Nuttalls, Deweys and one Munro have been demoted following accurate surveys by the database authors.We include categories for Deleted Munro Tops (which includes deleted Munros not retained as Tops), Deleted Corbetts, Deleted Donald Tops (which includes deleted Donalds), Deleted Marilyns, Deleted Nuttalls and Deleted Deweys. There are currently no deleted Grahams or Hewitts. In the absence of an accepted definition of what constitutes a deleted top, we have adopted the following convention:
SubsA "Sub" is a hill that falls short of meeting a list's classification threshold by a specified amount. The database includes SubMarilyns, SubGrahams, SubMurdos and SubHewitts. Dawson originally defined Subs as hills that miss out by less than 10 metres in height or 10 metres in drop. This definition is adopted in the TACit booklets on the Murdos, Grahams and Hewitts and in most private lists circulating on the web. Recently Dawson has changed the definition of Sub, limiting it to hills that only miss out on drop. The rationale is that lists are now available for all height ranges with 30+ metres of drop (see Marhofn 153) so that a Sub that misses out on height will always be a member of another named list. Hence a "Sub" category is usually only needed for hills with 20-29m of drop.There may be some logic in this change, but it represents a departure from the original idea of a Sub being a "near miss". This was always an attractive concept, and the term "Double Sub" continues to be used for hills that marginally miss out on both height and drop. A drawback of Dawson's revised definition is that readers wanting to know which hills to climb to be certain of bagging all hills that might in reality qualify for the parent list (see below), or to survey borderline cases on the ground, cannot simply look at a table of Subs. As we believe these are important reasons for being interested in Subs, we have retained the original definition in the database. In any case, the new definition of Sub has yet to appear in the published lists of the Sub categories included in the database. Prior to v9 we did not include Double Subs because the relevant categories of hill with less than 30m of drop appeared not to have been fully researched. This is no longer the case, although there is a possibility that more remain to be discovered. Accordingly, we now list DoubleSubMurdos, DoubleSubHewitts and DoubleSubGrahams. Rather than create three new categories in the Queries, each of which would include only a few hills, we have included the hills within the Sub categories and distinguished them by the prefix ss in the Classification field, e.g. a DoubleSubHewitt is denoted ssHew. We have not included SubCorbetts, Sub Corbett Tops, Sub Graham Tops or SubDeweys. We hope to add Sub Corbett Tops and Sub Graham Tops in a future release, but we do not have a complete listing of SubDeweys. If retaining the original definition of Sub, it is tempting to extend the "subness" on height down to 750m for SubCorbetts and Sub Corbett Tops, as suggested by Dawson. The statistical error associated with heights on OS maps means that some Subs have a non-negligible probability of qualifying for the main list. Serious baggers who wish to legitimately claim ascent of all hills meeting the list criteria will need to climb some Subs. As a rough guide, you should climb those hills within 3m of the qualifying height and 4m of drop. For further information see Allowing for measurement error. It would be wrong, incidentally, to assume that Double Subs have an insignificant probability of qualification. A change in summit height will induce a corresponding change in drop, so errors in height and drop are correlated. Birks Fell was a DoubleSubHewitt before its promotion. SubMarilyns, SubHewitts etc. that are deleted during the lifetime of this database will be retained as unclassified hills. A number of other hills not belonging to any list are included in the database. As a matter of policy we create a record for any hill surveyed by us as falling short of qualification for list status, in order that the survey results are not "lost" in the event of the hill being queried in the future. A handful of other unclassified hills listed on Simon Edwardes' site were added to prevent difficulties when our two databases were merged for v11. The "unofficial" Twin Peaks mentioned above have been retained as unclassified hills. Description of fieldsNotes on the contents of the database fields follow. The following abbreviations are used when referring to sources:RHB=The Relative Hills of Britain; TACit=TACit Tables. Significant changes to Marilyns since RHB's publication in 1992 are given in update sheets and can be found on the Marilyn News Centre. At the time of writing the Grahams list on the TAC website dates from the 1995 book and not from the 2nd edition dated 1999.
Number
Name
Where a Gaidhlig name has an apostrophe, our convention is not to use a trailing space. Thus we give Stuc a'Chroin rather than Stuc a' Chroin. However where a' is a contraction (for hills this is usually a contraction of "an") it is correct to insert a space, and the OS generally does so. Our usage aligns with RHB, the TACit Tables and most hill names in Munro's Tables, and as we have followed this convention since v1 we believe that maintaining our current practice is the least confusing for users. Alternative names by which a hill is known are given in square brackets.
Section
Subsequent to the publication of RHB, the boundary between Sections 1 and 26 was moved to follow the course of the Highland Boundary Fault. This resulted in some hills being moved from 1B to 26B. Hills duplicated in more than one section of the RHB/TACit tables, or which could be put in more than one section, have been classified as follows:
Black Mountain (2241, Wales)
Hills on the England-Scotland border
_Section
Region
Area
For Wainwright Outlying Fells we have extended the areas defined in the Pictorial Guides by continuing the Windermere boundary southwards along the River Leven to Greenodd, and from Bassenthwaite Lake north-west along the River Derwent. In England and Wales, the Nuttall and Wainwright names have been used for all other hills falling within those areas. There are a handful of lesser hills situated between the English Lakes and Dales National Parks, and some Deweys in Wales, where one can make a case for a different area name from the one we have chosen. A particular problem lies in the boundary between the Arans and Berwyns for the hills south of Bala from Rhiwaedog-uwch-afon (3421) in the north to Mynydd Maes-glas (3424) in the south. The easiest solution would be either to put them all in the Arans, as Dewey does, or all in the Berwyns. However in the Nuttalls' book, Moel y Cerrig Duon (2116) belongs to the Arans and Foel y Geifr (2115) and Foel Goch (2123) to the Berwyns. Geographically this is not very logical, but the Nuttalls clearly did so because Moel y Cerrig Duon is conveniently included in the same walk as the hills west of the road summit. Our current solution is to assign those hills south of Moel y Cerrig Duon and south-west of Lake Vyrnwy to the Arans, and those north of Moel y Cerrig Duon and to the north-east of Lake Vyrnwy in the Berwyns, with the exception of Moel Eunant (3412) which is a satellite of Moel y Cerrig Duon. We feel this is the best we can do without breaking the alignment with the Nuttalls' book. To divide the Arenigs from the Moelwyns we chose to make the boundary Festiniog-B4391-B4407. There are other options but none are demonstrably better. The Moelwyns (as defined by the Nuttalls) span two RHB regions, 30B and 30D. Dewey's division of central Wales is a good one, but to adopt it would mean breaking the link with the Nuttalls' book for hills in their "Central Wales" chapter. We have used Dewey's area Hiraethog for the four hills within that region as it does not contain any 2000ft summits. For hills outside the areas mentioned above, the RHB Section name is used except where a commonly used regional name exists, e.g. Forest of Bowland.
Height and Grid Reference
We now have 10-figure grid references from GPS for the majority of hills in the database; as described below, we use these to derive the 6-figure grid reference. For a small but growing number of hills we have accurate height measurements from differential GPS. Other published lists may give different data. One reason why grid references can vary is that authors have not measured them in the same way. By convention, the OS Grid Reference is the address of the 100m square in which the feature lies. This is given by the co-ordinates of the south-west corner of the square. For example, the trig point of Great Shunner Fell is located at SD84862 97290 so the correct 6-figure Grid Reference is SD848972. The TACit tables comply with this convention but some list authors round to the nearest 100m instead; in the above example they would give SD849973. To remeasure all doubtful summits on large scale maps ourselves would be a time-consuming task of uncertain value, considering that spot heights and trigs are often some distance from the summit anyway. It is better to regard the 6-figure Grid Reference of a hill as approximate if no 10-figure Grid Reference is given. Data for Scotland are mostly from 1:10000 or 1:25000 mapping if from Dawson and from 1:25000 or 1:50000 maps for other hills. Some pre-1981 Deleted Munro Tops not otherwise classified are from our own map readings; any ambiguities regarding the intended summit are noted in The Munros: 1891-1997. In v7 we overhauled the 6-figure grid references to align them with the 10-figure grid references where we have them. This was done after making a small adjustment to the GPS measurement to correct for systematic error in the instrument readout (see below). We also refrained from changing some existing 6-figure grid references where the change might be attributable to statistical error. We have repeated this process in subsequent revisions. For Wainwrights the author sometimes gives a summit location that is not the highest point of the fell. This is particularly true of the Outlying Fells. Our policy is to take the location intended by Wainwright. Any doubtful cases are mentioned in the Comments field. Metric heights are converted to feet using a factor of 3.2808399.
Col Height, Col Grid Reference and Drop
Drop, also known as relative height in the UK and prominence in the US, is defined as the height difference in metres between the summit and the col connecting the hill to the next higher summit. Cols are usually much less well defined than the summits of hills and therefore six-figure col grid references given in the database generally have an uncertainty of 100m in easting and/or northing. Col heights and drops given to 0.1m are from surveys. Col positions given to 8 or 10 figures are Garmin GPS measurements; with the exception of a few obvious locations these too were also determined by surveying.
10 Figure Grid Reference
We have included some ten-figure grid references derived from data published by Ordnance Survey for trig points on hill summits. A comparison of 246 OS measurements with our GPS measurements revealed systematic errors in the GPS data. On average, GPS eastings range from being 7m higher than OS eastings in the westernmost parts of Scotland to 1m lower in the east. GPS northings vary from being 14m lower than OS northings in Northern Scotland to 9m higher in SW England. We are grateful to Darren Parker who had himself discovered this error and has researched its cause. We reproduce Darren's explanation below. The latitude and longitude shown on Ordnance Survey maps are determined with respect to the OSGB36 (Ordnance Survey Great Britain 1936) datum. This datum is based upon a ground survey performed between 1936 and 1953 and uses the ellipsoid defined by Sir George Airy in 1830. The latitude and longitude can be converted to planar coordinates using a Transverse Mercator projection (once the origin is defined) to give the National Grid references we use. Since the advent of GPS the method of defining the National Grid has changed. It is now defined using the latitude and longitude determined with respect to the ETRS89 datum (which is based upon the WGS84 datum and uses the GRS80 ellipsoid) which are then converted using a transformation known as OSTN02 to give the give the grid reference with respect to OSGB36. The transformation OSTN02 is not a simple transformation defined by equations alone, but because of distortions in the OSGB36 grid, it also uses values of slight shifts in northing and easting values. The grids of northing and easting shifts between ETRS89 and OSGB36 cover Britain with a grid resolution of one kilometre. The shifts of a particular point are then interpolated from this grid. The transformation OSTN02 can be obtained from www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/gps – the software is called Grid InQuest.Thus the National Grid is now defined by ETRS89 and the OSTN02 transformation. A good guide to the subject is A guide to coordinate systems in Great Britain. Also available is an Excel spreadsheet with many useful functions for converting from one datum to another. A GPS unit determines the latitude and longitude of its position in the WGS84 datum (which is almost identical to the ETRS89 datum). In order to display this position as a British National Grid reference the GPS unit must perform a transformation. Unfortunately, the transformation equations stored in the unit are not as accurate as the OSTN02 transformation. Garmin and Magellan units use a transformation known as a Molodensky transformation (the equations and required parameters can be found in "Department of Defense World Geodetic System 1984 - Its Definition and Relationship with Local Geodetic Systems, NIMA TR8350.2, 3rd Edition, Amendment 1, 3 Jan 2000"). This leads to the discrepancies highlighted above. The transformations used by other manufacturers have not been investigated. A number of strategies are available to remove the errors introduced by the Molodensky transformation. GPS waypoints can be downloaded to a computer using free or commercial software and the WGS84 latitude and longitude extracted. These can then be converted to British National Grid references using Grid InQuest (which has a batch mode facility). Alternatively, if the British National Grid references have been copied from the GPS screen, these can be converted back into WGS84 latitude and longitude values using the Molodensky transformation equations directly or by using the free program Geotrans. As before, these can then be converted to British National Grid references using Grid InQuest. Both Geotrans and Grid InQuest have a batch conversion facility. When entering position coordinates of a location into a GPS, one has to bear in mind the source of the coordinates. If a grid reference has been read from the screen of a GPS unit, then entering the grid reference into another GPS unit using its own input screen will result in a point in the correct location (even though the grid reference may be incorrect). However, if the position coordinates are uploaded using computer software, the coordinates should be in the form of WGS84 latitude and longitude values. Since we presume most users will be using the grid references for input to GPS units, we have not corrected the GPS measurements for the systematic error described above. A few ten-figure grid references were obtained by differential GPS (see survey), and these instruments report accurate grid references to the OSGB36 standard. To align with the other data, the systematic error of the Garmin/Magellan instruments has been introduced into the grid reference using Grid InQuest and GeoTrans i.e. the reverse of the correction procedure described above. We have done the same with the OS trig measurements. Because 6-figure grid references are usually used with maps, it was desirable to correct the 10-figure GPS measurements to the true OSGB36 datum before truncating them to derive the figure for the Grid Reference field. In versions prior to v10.2 we used a statistical model fitted to the trig point data mentioned above. We now perform the correction by successively transforming the data to WGS84 and British National Grid using Geotrans and Grid InQuest. This procedure also enables us to populate the Latitude and Longitude fields and to give data to true OSGB36 in the xcoord, ycoord fields. Almost all values in the database refer to summit cairns, trig points or the obviously highest point in the vicinity of the six-figure grid reference. A few hills, e.g. Beinn Donachain NN198316, have poorly defined summits where several knolls vie for the title and we have chosen that point which we believe conforms most closely to the position given by the published six-figure reference. Other hills have large summit plateaux and in those cases where no survey has been conducted we have chosen a point within the 100m square given by the six-figure reference that appears to have the highest elevation. In some cases authors believed that other features outside the 100m square defined by the six-figure grid reference might represent the true position of the summit. Few of these data are entered in the database, although all are recorded in the spreadsheet from which the database entries are derived. Anyone interested in seeing the complete spreadsheet may receive a copy from the authors upon request. It is our aim to obtain GPS-measured ten-figure grid references for as many hills as possible in the database and we would be grateful if you are interested in helping. Each entry in the spreadsheet is credited to the person who made it. Please record: name of hill, ten-figure grid reference, height as given by GPS, precision of GPS at time of measurement, what the measurement refers to (e.g. summit cairn), your name and the date on which the measurement was made. Your GPS should also be set up according to the manufacturer's instructions using British Grid as the position format and ordnance survey GB as the map datum. Try to remember to switch on your GPS a few minutes before reaching the summit and try to leave the unit for at least five minutes to settle once it has locked on to satellites before taking a reading. We welcome your input. Some 10-figure grid references are published on the web but comparatively few are from ground observations. Measurements from maps cannot provide the same degree of accuracy, and frequently fail to identify the highest point. Our thanks are due to Ian Baines, David Baird, Alex Barbour, Bert Barnett, Jim Bloomer, David Claymore, Jim Coombes, Richard Cooper, Peter Cottam, Stephen Dawson, Dennis Foster, David Gradwell, Anthony Hartry, Peter & Liz Hastie, Ian Henderson, Bernie Hughes, Idwal Jones, Paul Kingston, Iain Macaulay, Bill Morden, Sandra Morrison, Robert Poole, David Purchase, Laurence Rudkin, Iain Rudkin, Toby Thurston, Paul Ward, David White and Paul Woodcock for their invaluable contributions.
Feature
Where there has been no survey equipment employed, then we do not claim that the feature and its accompanying ten-figure grid reference represents the true summit of the hill; it is the best endeavour of the contributor who submits the data.
Observations
Survey
The basic surveying tool we use is an Abney level which has a resolution of about 50cm of height per 100m of distance. This is sufficient to enable the true summit position of most hills to be determined. For hills where greater resolution is required, we initially employed a Leica Runner 20 Automatic level. This instrument has a x20 telescope and gives resolution of about 1cm of height per 100m of distance. We subsequently purchased a Leica NA730 Automatic level which boasts a x30 telescope and correspondingly higher resolution of about 0.5cm of height per 100m of distance. An Abney level is a small device weighing about 150g which easily packs into a rucksack. A Leica Runner weighs about 1500g, occupies significant space in a daysack and also requires a sturdy tripod. We also possess a Leica Disto A8 laser measurer that measures both distances and angles. This was used to survey Castell y Gwynt and Moel Famau. Optical levels are of limited use for accurate determination of height because they require a suitable datum e.g. a trig point of similar altitude that can be sighted directly or indirectly. Hills surveyed by this means include Birks Fell, Cracoe Fell and Great Yarlside. Optical levels enable accurate measurements of drop by differential levelling, and this has enabled us to determine the status of hills on the borderline of inclusion in the Nuttalls' and Dewey's lists. Because of the number of staff placements required and the time this would take, the technique is impractical for determining Marilyn status, where the drop is 150m. Differential GPS does not have these limitations, enabling accurate determination of height and drop for most hills. The CMCR surveys of Foinaven and Beinn Dearg and our collaborative surveys of Mynydd Graig Goch and Craig Fach used differential GPS, the latter employing a Leica SmartRover 1200. We now own a Leica 530 differential GPS unit and are using this to survey an increasing number of hills. Currently our priority is to survey Marilyns with drops in the range 147–153m. Apart from the surveys by CMCR of Foinaven and Beinn Dearg, all survey entries in the database are from measurements by John Barnard, Graham Jackson, Jim Bloomer, Myrddyn Phillips, George Gradwell and David Purchase. Detailed reports of surveys conducted by Barnard et al are published at http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/surveys.php. Many of the earlier reports can also be accessed from the Files section of the rhb e-group. Where an instrument is not required to determine the summit position and no other survey has been conducted, 'obvious summit' is recorded in the Survey field. A blank field denotes that the hill has not been surveyed.
We do not list subs and deletions for every list. See Deleted Tops and Subs for details.
County name
Revision
Comments
Streetmap
OS Get-a-map
xcoord, ycoord
Latitude, Longitude
Recent changes and issuesThe following hills are mentioned because of ambiguity, uncertainty, or changes that have not yet found their way into published lists. They are listed in order of Section number.
Creag na Criche (14, 1A)
Beinn a'Chroin (Murdo) (2925, 1C) and Beinn a'Chroin West Top (37, 1C)
Meall Chomraidh (140, 2A)
Beinn a'Chlachair East Top (359, 4B)
Sron Bealach Beithe (2924, 4B)
An Dun (399/400, 5B)
Gairbeinn - Corrieyairack Hill (632, 9B)
Gairbeinn - Carn Leac East Top (4382, 9B)
Beinn a'Chaorainn (663/665, 9C)
The Saddle North Top [1921: Sgurr na Creige] (706, 10A)
Buidhe Bheinn (713/715, 10A)
Beinn Aoidhdailean (4267, 10A) and Druim Fada (4270, 10A)
Sgurr nan Eugallt (744/745, 10B)
Sgurr nan Ceannaichean (900, 12A)
Following confirmation that the Ordnance Survey will adopt the height information from the recent surveys carried out by the Munro Society, the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) can confirm that it will amend the official list of Munros (Munro's Tables®), which it maintains, to show that Sgurr nan Ceannaichean (913m) is now no longer a Munro. This change brings the number of separate summits in former SMC member Sir Hugh Munro's list of 3000 foot peaks to 283. Sgurr nan Ceannaichean will be added to Corbett's Tables which the SMC also maintains and all future SMC publications will show these changes. The SMC is grateful to the Munro Society for its efforts and for bringing this revised height information to its attention. Surveys of Ben Vane (915.8m), Beinn Teallach (914.6m) and Sgurr a'Choire-bheithe (913.3m) confirmed the status quo.
Meall nan Damh (3319, 12A)
Beinn Dearg (970, 13A)
Beinn Bhan - A'Chioch (3256, 13B)
Beinn Dearg North Top (3267, 15A)
Beinn Tharsuinn - Sidhean a'Choin Bhain (3660, 15B)
Foinaven (1124, 16B)
In 2007 The Munro Society commissioned a survey of Foinaven. The summit height, ratified by the OS, was reported as 911.0m. The new height is shown on the current 1:25000 map.
Beinn Ceannabeinne (3336, 16B)
Knight's Peak (1261, 17B)
Then in August 2006 Ken Stewart obtained a new definitive height of 914.95 ± 0.5m from the OS, derived from high order photogrammetry and GPS. On enquiring about the methodology, the OS replied "the photo model was controlled using sub 0.1m accuracy GPS (i.e. points on the ground were fixed that could be identified on the imagery - GPS was not taken to the summit). The accuracy of the imagery heighting using this method is quoted as +/- 0.5m for the Z (height) value". See also TAC69.
Suidhe Chatain (3681, 19C)
Sail Chalmadale (1482, 20C)
Uamh Bheag (1644, 26)
Meikle Millyea (1693/1694, 27B)
Cairn Hill West Top (1846, 28B)/Hangingstone Hill (2304, 33) The grid reference for the summit, established by an Abney Level survey, is 70m SW of the fence junction and plots exactly on the England–Scotland border (from the OS Admin Meridian data). There is therefore no justification for listing the deleted Nuttall separately from the deleted Donald Top. Accordingly, we have transferred the deleted Nuttall to hill 1846 and declassified hill 2304. The summit is also the County Top of Roxburghshire.
Craig Fach (2032, 30B) and Mynydd Graig Goch (2033, 30B)
Castell y Gwynt (3662, 30B) and Carnedd y Filiast North Top (2001, 30B)
Mynydd y Cwm (2051, 30C)
Pen y Bedw East and West Tops (3385/6, 30D)
A differential GPS survey in November 2008 found the east top of Pen y Bedw to be 0.5m higher than the west top. The drop between the two tops is 23m. Accordingly, the east top (hill 3385) becomes the official Dewey and the west top (hill 3386) is deleted. The change has been accepted by Michael Dewey.
Cadair Bronwen NE Top (2093, 30E)
Mynydd Ceiswyn (3431, 30F), Domen-ddu (3466, 31B)
Moelfre (2217, 31C)
Housedon Hill (2318, 33)
Armboth Fell (2483/3761, 34B)
Honister Crag (3320, 34B)
Baystones [Wansfell] (2607/3838, 34C)
Wallow Crag [nameless - Naddle Horseshoe 2] (3329, 34C)
Great Yarlside (3661, 34C)
Arnside Knott (3321, 34D)
Burnhope Seat (2714, 35A)
Birks Fell (2799, 35B)
The impasse was resolved when John Barnard and Graham Jackson surveyed the hill using a precision optical level. A follow-up survey, in which they obtained digital photographs through the level, confirmed their finding that the hill was definitely above 2000 feet, their estimate being 610.4 ± 0.2m or between 2002 and 2003ft. Details of both surveys can be read in Survey Reports. This information was relayed to interested parties. Subsequently the Nuttalls obtained a revised figure of 2001ft at SD919764 from the OS (from a 1920 levelling survey) which they indicated will appear on the next update of the 1:25000 Explorer. The OS later (19 Dec 2007) indicated that the new 610m spot will be shown at SD 9186 7637, a little to the south west of the cairn and in agreement with the 1:50000 map.
Thorpe Fell Top (2803, 35B) and Cracoe Fell (3682, 35B)
Raw Head (2828, 36)
Axe Edge (3631, 36)
Milk Hill (2872, 39)
Botley Hill (2910/3686, 42)
The Access database — relationalFor v11 the Access 2000 database, which can also be used with later versions of Access, has been restructured into a fully relational database. The original Hills table, familiar to users of previous versions, has been replaced by a set of eight related tables. The Hills table remains at the core, but Classification (hill list) and Area information has moved to separate tables, with "link" tables to identify the Classes and Areas to which a hill belongs. The columns of tick boxes for the individual hill lists have therefore disappeared, and you will no longer see the Area names in the Hills table.The Date climbed column has been replaced by a new Userlog table. This allows you to record other ascent information along with the date. There is a User table that allows multiple users to share the same copy of the database, each maintaining separate logs. You will be relieved to know you do not have to be an expert on relational databases to use the new file. Viewing hill data, and logging your ascents, are simplified by the provision of a number of forms and screens. On opening the database you are presented with a Welcome screen, which is the start point for all the facilities provided by the database. It provides the following options.
The Access database — non-relationalAll releases prior to version 11 were of this type. We may discontinue the non-relational version in the future, but for the time being we offer both formats.
Tables View
Queries View
Query 65 returns hills within a section that have not been climbed by the user and it operates slightly differently. Upon opening this query, the user is presented with a dialog box, which prompts for the Section desired. So if the user wants to know how many hills in Section 1A he or she has not climbed, then 1A must be entered into the dialog box. Note that if 1 is entered then all sections containing 1 as the first character will be returned, that is all of Section 1 and all of Sections 10 to 19. There are many ways in which this query could be set up; please email the authors if you feel the output would be more useful in another form. The General query is used for database maintenance by the authors.
Form View
Take care not to type in the form itself or you will overwrite the data!
Report View
Uploading grid references to a GPSGrid references from the database may be uploaded to a GPS unit using appropriate software. We are aware of three websites that offer such software: GPS Utility, G7toWin, and Oziexplorer. GPS Utility and Oziexplorer are commercial packages but evaluation copies can be downloaded free of charge. G7toWin is freeware. We have evaluated GPS Utility and G7toWin. We understand that Anquet Maps and Memory-Map also have facilities for importing grid references but we have not investigated these.Instructions for GPS UtilityDownload both GPS Utility and GPSU File Converter. The latter converts files with a csv extension to text files that open in GPS Utility. The steps involved in the process of uploading a file to a GPS are as follows.
Setting up GPSU File ConverterOpen the application and enter the following information:
Setting up GPS Utility
Note that it is the unique Hill Number that is transferred to the GPS in our test file and not the Hill Name. The Garmin eTrex only accepts six characters for a waypoint name and most hill names are much longer than this. Unique Hill Numbers currently run from 1–5614 and so are all less than six characters in length. When starting a walk, the appropriate Hill Number will be visible in MapView (when set to the appropriate scale) on the eTrex and the user will be able to identify the correct hill to select in GOTO when approaching the summit area. One of the authors has used a dataset of twenty hills uploaded to a Garmin eTrex and successfully navigated to all of them in this way. Whilst the hill name is a useful identifier in the csv file, it is not necessary once the whole dataset is in the GPS. However if the user prefers to abbreviate hill names and use these as the ID, this is easily accommodated by GPS Utility. From our experience of field testing, the ten-figure grid references in the database should take the user to within 10m of the target feature, and often 4m or less. The database is available in csv format from the databases page and it is this version we recommend you use to create your own files for uploading to your GPS. We are grateful to Darren Parker who first kindled our interest in uploading ten-figure grid references from the database to a GPS unit We would welcome your comments. Recreating the original listsMicrosoft Access users will find queries for all the individual lists, including some sub-categories. Users of the Excel or text versions of the database can recreate the original lists by sorting on the relevant category field followed by Area (for Donalds, Nuttalls and Wainwrights), _Section followed by Section (Corbetts and Corbett Tops), or _Section (for everything else). In Excel, the easiest way of selecting hills belonging to a particular category is to use the Autofilter facility in the Data menu. This is already set up in the file.We have not provided a mechanism for ordering the hills within each Area or Section to match the original printed list as it would take much effort to produce and maintain. For Marilyns and Grahams, the hill order in RHB/TACit can be reproduced approximately by further sorting in order of descending height. User feedback and database enhancementsWe welcome users' suggestions for enhancing the database, and of course reports of errors.We are particularly keen to receive 10 figure GPS measurements from readers. Please see 10 Figure Grid References for the information we need. AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank Alan Dawson for granting us permission to use his data; Rob Woodall for making data available on the rhb e-group; Geoff Crowder for assisting with the revision of the Wainwright Outlying Fells; Gordon Adshead for screening grid references and 1:50000 map numbers; Anthony Hartry for 1:25000 map numbers; Bernie Hughes and David White for supplying drops and col grid references; all those who responded to the user survey in 2008; and many other correspondents who reported errors and suggested improvements.We are grateful to TACit Press for putting its lists on the Web, which considerably reduced the effort involved in the compilation of version 1. Updated 28 January 2010 |
