Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – 100m Twmpau

Courthouse Bank (SJ 247 183)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the 100m Twmpau, and the following details are in respect of a hill that was surveyed with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 on the 20^th March 2015.

The criteria for the list that this name change applies to are:

100m Twmpau - All Welsh hills at and above 100m and below 200m in height that have 30m minimum drop, with the word Twmpau being an acronym standing for thirty welsh metre prominences and upward.

The hill is a part of the Carnedd Wen range, which is an extensive group of hills situated in the southern part of north Wales, and it is positioned between the small communities of Llanymynech to the north-east, Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain to the north-west, Ardd-lin (Arddleen) towards the south and Four Crosses to the east.

The summit of Courthouse Bank

The hill appeared in the 100m P30 list on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website under an invented name of Court House Top, with an accompanying note stating; Name from house to the South-West, with Court House being the name of a house.  During my early hill listing I thought it appropriate to invent a name for a hill if no name seemed to appear for it on Ordnance Survey maps of the day.  My preference was to use farm names and put Pen, Bryn or Moel in front of them, occasionally I used other names and for those that were English ones, I usually added the suffix of Top.  This is not a practice that I now advocate as with research either conducted locally or historically an appropriate name for the hill can usually be found.

Court House Top

150c

SJ248183

126

240

Name from house to the South-West

The name this hill is now listed by is Courthouse Bank, and this was derived from the Ordnance Survey enlarged mapping hosted on the Geograph website.  This mapping became publicly available after the original P30 lists were published on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website.

Detail from the Ordnance Survey enlarged mapping hosted on the Geograph website

Since the publication of these P30 lists there have been a number of historical Ordnance Survey maps made available online, some of these include the Six-Inch maps on the National Library of Scotland website, much of the place-name information on these maps were the source for what now appears on the Ordnance Survey enlarged mapping hosted on the Geograph website.

Detail from the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch map, with the name Courthouse Bank first appearing on the 1887 map on the National Library of Scotland website

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Carnedd Wen

Name:  Courthouse Bank

Previously Listed Name:  Court House Top

 

Summit Height:  149.5m (converted to OSGM15)

OS 1:50,000 map:  126

Summit Grid Reference:  SJ 24787 18328 

Drop:  33.6m (converted to OSGM15)

For details on the survey of Courthouse Bank

Myrddyn Phillips (July 2016)