Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – Humps

Gowbarrow Fell (NY 407 217) – Subhump reclassified to Hump

This is the fifth in a series of Hill Reclassification posts that detail hills whose status has been altered in the listing of the Humps (HUndred Metre Prominences) through map study and / or surveys that I have been a part of.

This and forthcoming posts are retrospective as many of these hill reclassifications were initiated from studying the Ordnance Survey enlarged mapping that is hosted on the Geograph website, however this reclassification was initiated by a survey conducted by John Barnard, Graham Jackson, Jim Bloomer and myself.

The listing of Humps was published in book format by Lulu in 2009 and entitled More Relative Hills of Britain, its author; Mark Jackson gives credit to a number of people who contributed toward the formation of this list, these include; Eric Yeaman, Alan Dawson, Clem Clements, Rob Woodall, Bernie Hughes, Pete Ridges and others.  When the list was published in book format there were 2987 Humps listed with their criteria being any British hill that has 100m or more of drop, accompanying the main list is a sub category entitled the Subhumps, with the criteria being any British hill that has 90m or more and below 100m of drop.

More Relative Hills of Britain by Mark Jackson

The details for the reclassification appear below:

There has been a reclassification to the listing of the Humps (HUndred Metre Prominences) due to a survey conducted by John Barnard, Graham Jackson, Jim Bloomer and myself with a Leica 530 on the 16.04.12.

Gowbarrow Fell (NY 407 217)

The hill had been previously surveyed for summit position and assessment of its drop by Jim Bloomer, Chris Crocker, Graham Jackson and Janet Jackson in October 2011, and prior to this survey Mark Jackson had listed this hill as a Subhump with 98m of drop, this drop value was based on the 481m spot height adjoined to a triangulation pillar and an estimated col height of c 383m.  However, Vector mapping gives a 482m spot height south of where the trig pillar is positioned and the area of the col has a 1249.9ft (381.0m) bench mark on the Ordnance Survey 1:10,560 map, these values give this hill 102m of drop, which is sufficient for it to be reclassified to Hump status.

Surveying Gowbarrow Fell

The name of the hill is Gowbarrow Fell and it is adjoined to the Helvellyn range of hills in the Eastern Fells of the Lake District, the hill is situated overlooking the A 5091 road to its west, and the A 592 road and the expanse of Ullswater to its south, and is positioned with the small communities of Dockray to its west and Matterdale End to its north-west.

The addition of this hill to Hump status was accepted by Mark Jackson and its new classification augmented in to the listing of the Humps on the 20.04.12.

The full details for the hill are:

Name:  Gowbarrow Fell

Summit Height:  481.2m (converted to OSGM15)

OS 1:50,000 map:  90

OS 1:25,000 map:  5

Summit Grid Reference:  NY 40731 21724

Drop:  100.1m (converted to OSGM15)

Myrddyn Phillips (August 2017)