The History of Welsh Hill Lists

The History of Welsh Hill Lists – Part 5

The Early Years

1911-1940

1929 – John Rooke Corbett

With the completion throughout England and Wales of the Popular Edition of the One-Inch Ordnance map, John Rooke Corbett updated his original 1911 list, and thus in 1929 the Rucksack Club Journal published an eight page article, again entitled Twenty-Fives.  This revised Corbett’s first list and included 148 English and Welsh 2500 foot tops, fifty eight of which are in Wales.  Similar in format to his 1911 publication:

The first page comprises an introduction with the last three pages relating to Wales.  The Welsh list is split into six groups with a brief description of each followed by the mountain’s name and height, in all three mountains are deleted from the 1911 list, whilst ten mountains are added. 

Front cover of the 1929 Rucksack Club Journal

Of particular interest is the addition of Cader Berwyn, S. Top which was mapped at 2650 + feet, it would be almost sixty years before this particular mountain was recognised by published list compilers and the Ordnance Survey alike as being the highest point of the Berwyn, eventually receiving the designated map height of an 830 metre ring contour (2723 feet), and eighty five years since this hills first appearance in a list before its accurate height of 832.0m was obtained by using a Trimble GeoXH 6000.  Corbett’s criterion for inclusion depended upon each top being indicated by a separate contour ring, but also retained were a few others, whose summits Corbett remembered as distinct tops.  By using this criterion Corbett is open to including certain tops that have less re-ascent, than other tops, which are omitted.  But by compiling this list from map details with contour intervals of 50 feet, Corbett had taken the first step toward this prescribed height being used as the designated minimum re-ascent criterion for many a future list compiler.

Next installment due on the 30^th November 2014

For the Preface please click {here}

For Part 1 please click {here}

For Part 2 please click {here}

For Part 3 please click {here}

For Part 4 please click {here}