The History of Welsh Hill Lists - Preface

 

The following text is an analysis of the evolutionary process of the early years of the Welsh hill list.  From its first systematic use in the early 20^th century to the early 1960’s when one man had a vision decades ahead of its time.  As with most hill lists ground rules are used, mine are:

Within the following pages a peak over 2000 feet in height is usually described as a mountain, and one under this height as a hill, occasionally this does alter, but only when I consider the reading of the text necessitates it.  A 'peak' or 'top' can refer to either a mountain or hill.

Over time some accepted spellings for mountains and place names have changed.  Whilst using quotations and listings of hills I have adhered to the original spellings within each respective list and have put these in italics.  Hopefully no confusion will arise from doing this.

To differentiate between the text that deals with the background to each list and the text that deals with the detailed description of the list itself, the latter has been indented within the text. 

When each list is introduced its date of publication, or compilation for unpublished listings, author and title are highlighted in bold.

Although lists of hills to various individual ranges do exist, the smallest region this article deals with is either Northern or Southern Snowdonia.    The one category this article does not detail  is listings to the County Tops.

The research conducted for this article has been greatly enhanced by help given by a number of people.  I would like to express my thanks to; Richard Moss, Dewi Jones, Bill Owens, the late George Bintley, David Matthews, Dr H.J.B. Day, Brian Turner (The Wayferers’ Club),  Ros Harding (The King's School, Chester), Geof Milburn, David Purchase and Jeff Parr.


Next installment due on the 30^th January 2014 

For Part 1 please click {here}

For Part 2 please click {here}

For Part 3 please click {here}