G&J Surveys - Introduction

G&J Surveys is the name of a team of three hill / mountain enthusiasts who survey the heights of British hills and mountains.  The team was formed by John Barnard and Graham Jackson in June 2006, with Myrddyn Phillips joining the team in May 2007, with the name of G&J Surveys originating in late 2008.

The three of us are all keen and very experienced hill walkers; John has completed the Munros and Munro Tops twice, the Corbetts, the Grahams as well as over 1,390 Marilyns.  Graham has completed the Munros and Munro Tops, Corbetts, Grahams, English and Welsh Nuttalls and over 1,150 Marilyns.  Myrddyn has walked extensively in Wales and has completed 16 full rounds of the Welsh 2,000ft Mountains as well as the Welsh Deweys and the English Nuttalls.  In addition, John and Graham are both degreed scientists and Myrddyn is an inveterate hill list compiler.  This provides the team with its technical and practical background to take on and operate the techniques of topographical surveying.

The G&J Surveys team; L to R, John Barnard, Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips

The teams origins can be traced to several years ago when Graham and Chris Crocker decided to develop a database of British Hills, originally for personal use to log progress of hill / mountain ascents this was soon put on Chris’ ‘Statistical Topics in Hillwalking’ website.  The point of the database was simply to improve the method of recording ascents and avoid duplication of records.  Shortly after this was started, hand-held GPS units became available which could record Grid References to 10 figures, rather than the 6 figures that were commonly used in guide books.  With this new equipment, it was decided to collect these more accurate grid references and add them to the database.

 

It soon became clear that it was not always obvious where the summit of a hill was and therefore a way was needed to identify these points before collecting the GPS data.  So this started John and Graham down the path of surveying.  Meanwhile, Myrddyn was using a basic levelling staff to determine the drop of over 420 Welsh hills.  It was the mutual interest in hill data accuracy that led Myrddyn to contact John and Graham in 2007.

As the database grew, it was found that at times data on the maps or hill lists were not correct, and therefore detailed and accurate surveying was needed to correct these errors.

The database has grown and now has a management team of seven people and over 20 people contributing to the collection of data, with G&J Surveys providing surveys to make sure any questionable data can be verified.  It is now considered as the definitive database of British and Irish Hills and is available on the Web at:

http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/

http://www.hills-database.co.uk/news.html

There are many guidebooks and lists of British Hills that have been published over the years.  Perhaps the most important list is the ‘Munros’, which is defined as any mountain in Scotland over 3,000ft.  This list is managed by the Scottish Mountaineering Club who keeps a record of all the people who have ascended these mountains.  ‘Munro Bagging’ as it is called, is a popular pastime / challenge and several thousand people are now recorded as having climbed them all.  However, there are many other lists based on different criteria.  Two more examples are the ‘Nuttalls’, these are the mountains in England and Wales over 2,000ft with a minimum of 15m of drop on all sides, and the ‘Marilyns’, which are summits with a minimum of 150m of drop on all sides.  Again, once someone creates a new list of hills, then it is not long before enthusiasts take on the challenge of climbing them.  As these and other hill lists usually have a minimum height and / or drop qualification we can prioritise the marginal hills for a survey to determine their status with the aim of creating definitive listings of hills.

We have a full range of surveying equipment suitable to solve any problem.  We operate Survey Grade GPS equipment from Leica Geosystems and this allows us to measure accurately heights relative to Ordnance Datum Newlyn and Grid References to within a few centimetres.  Over the years we have built up a strong working relationship with Ordnance Survey.  We carry out our surveys as per their protocols, they have advised us on many an occasion and have been present in the field to watch how we operate.  Ordnance Survey fully endorses our work and has said so publically through the media.  In addition, they accept our results and make the necessary map changes where appropriate.

For commercial reasons, Ordnance Survey now carries out very little work on accurate surveying of hills / mountains.  G&J Surveys are filling this gap and we are one of only three groups in Britain currently regularly carrying out this work.

Our work divides into two main areas.  The bulk of it involves carrying out specific surveys to obtain accurate data.  This work is of interest only to hill walkers, mountaineers and authors who compile hill lists.  The second, and more interesting area, is to identify projects that will have a much broader interest and attract media attention.  We have been carrying out one or two projects of this type most years.                                                

Over the years we have appeared on BBC, ITV and S4C Television.

2008 – In conjunction with Leica Geosystems we surveyed a hill in Snowdonia, Mynydd Graig Goch, and found it to be 6 inches over 2,000ft thereby ‘creating’ a new Welsh Mountain ( a mountain being defined as having a minimum height of 2,000ft in England and Wales).  We organised a Press Conference to announce the result, and clips about the survey with accompanying interviews appeared on TV News broadcasts.

Myrddyn turning the tables on BBC Reporter Nick Ravenscroft after giving a live television interview on the BBC News 24 channel

                               

                                                                                                

Later BBC’s ‘Countryfile’ approached us as they had picked up on the story of Mynydd Graig Goch and wanted to accompany us to the summit to re-live the survey.  This they duly did and we then met them two weeks later to be interviewed on the subject.  This was broadcast as part of one of the transmissions focused on North Wales.

Preparing to visit the summit of Mynydd Graig Goch with the Countryfile film crew

Graham prepares to be interviewed by John Craven for Countryfile

                                          

2009 – We appeared on BBC’s ‘Countryfile’ again with the Ordnance Survey in a project to identify the highest point in Wiltshire.  After carrying out preliminary surveys we found that the highest point was one of two hills, Milk Hill and Tan Hill, about 2km apart.  The broadcast was organised with a survey team on each hill with radio communication and Julia Bradbury coordinating to answer the question ‘Which hill is higher?’

John and Graham with Julia Bradbury surveying for the highest point in Wiltshire

Later in the year we attended the Press Conference that The Munro Society had organised to announce the survey result of that years heightings.  This included the measurement of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean which was then a marginal Munro.  As commissioned surveyor’s for the heightings we gave a presentation and answered questions.  The news that Sgurr nan Ceannaichean had been reclassified from Munro to Corbett status by The Scottish Mountaineering Club was covered by BBC Scotland Television and Radio.

Formal surroundings for The Munro Press Conference to announce the years heighting results

                                               
2010 – We carried out two projects in Snowdonia.  The first was to re-measure the height of Tryfan since there was a possibility that this mountain did not reach 3,000ft.  Tryfan is a very popular mountain in Wales and it is well known for its difficulty of ascent.  BBC Wales was interested in following this project in terms of news broadcasts to create interest to the question ‘Is it or isn’t it 3,000ft?’  The survey was followed live on BBC Wales on the day of the survey when the result was announced.  The project was also carried out with the presence of the Snowdonia Society and Ordnance Survey.

The team for re-surveying Tryfan

The team for re-surveying Glyder Fawr

                                                                                           

The second was Glyder Fawr which was on the Ordnance Survey maps with a height of 999m.  Did it reach over 1,000m?  The answer was ‘yes’ and we measured the height to be 1000.8m.  So this made the 5^th highest mountain of only five mountains above 1,000m in Wales.  We organised a Press Conference and announced the result with contributions from Ordnance Survey, the organizers of the Welsh 1,000m challenge (a hill race covering all the 1,000m peaks in Wales and hence this survey meant the route would need to be changed), The Metric Society, The National Trust and The Snowdonia National Park Authority.  All of this was captured in regional BBC, ITV and Welsh Media News Broadcasts.

2013 – During the year we carried out three projects that received extensive media coverage.  The first of which was to re-measure the height of Thack Moor since there was a possibility this hill was over 2,000ft.  We visited the hill twice, firstly to gather two hours of summit data and secondly in the company of Bob Smith from the Grough website, who wanted to film and interview us during the four hours of summit data the Ordnance Survey had now advised us to gather.  The resulting confirmation that Thack Moor is 2cm (¾ of an inch) above 2,000ft was broadcast on Regional TV and radio and was reported in the national Newspapers. 
                                               

Bob Smith editor of the Grough website accompanied us on the second survey of Thack Moor

The second was Tal y Fan, this mountain was chosen after we were approached by BBC Breakfast who had seen the Thack Moor coverage and wanted us to survey something similar.  Ideally this time it should be a mountain that became a hill!  The resulting survey was conducted in the presence of the Ordnance Survey with the result that Tal y Fan retained its mountain status being announced live on BBC Breakfast Television.

The team prepare for their live BBC Breakfast broadcast

The third was the survey of Knight’s Peak and the Basteir Tooth in the Skye Cuillin.  The former we had organised in conjunction with the Scottish Mountaineering Club and The Munro Society, whilst the latter was organised by The Munro Society in conjunction with the Scottish Mountaineering Club with us as surveyors.  The news that Knight’s Peak was 914.24ft (2,999 5½ inches) and therefore did not retain its Munro Top status was announced on BBC Scotland Television and Radio.

Representatives from G&J Surveys, SMC, TMS anf friends with BBC Scotland for the Knight's Peak announcement

All of the projects mentioned above were covered extensively with Radio appearances.  The radio stations that have shown interest in our work are BBC National and Local Services, BBC Worldwide Service, Radio 5 Live and a number of smaller regional stations like Heart, Radio Manchester and Radio Wiltshire.

We have appeared twice on Roy Noble’s afternoon Radio Wales programme which followed the progress of the survey of Glyder Fawr.  We have also appeared on BBC Wales’ news programmes, commenting on the China / Nepal controversy on the height of Everest.

All of the ‘media’ projects detailed previously have been covered by the National and Local Press both in their newspapers and websites.  A search on the Internet of key words like ‘Mynydd Graig Goch’, ‘Tryfan survey’, Glyder Fawr 1,000m’, ‘Thack Moor’ and ‘Knight’s Peak’ quickly reveals the extent of the coverage of our activities.

Some of the newspaper coverage of the Mynydd Graig Goch survey

The leading Hill Walking Magazine ‘The Great Outdoors’ (TGO) has written an article about our activities and the past assistant editor of the magazine was also present with us on the Glyder Fawr survey.

We have also attracted the attention of the scientific publications and have had articles printed in Chartered Engineer Surveyor magazine and GIS International.  The former has published an article on our surveys of Tryfan and Glyder Fawr.