30.01.18 Seager Hill South Top (SO 624 379) and Seager
Hill (SO 613 389)
 |
| Seager Hill (SO 613 389) |
Seager Hill has a
reputation for being a difficult hill, both from the access viewpoint and from
the position of its summit. The former
seems ad hoc, as the hill is situated on a private estate and instances when
hill walkers have been told to leave as there is no access to the hill have
been recorded, although many others visit without any such problem, whilst the
latter is due to the hill having two summits both of which are similar in
height with the one believed to be the higher also having a summit that is relatively
flat.
These two summits are given
a 269m spot height on contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer maps. However, they are now separated in listing
terms as the more north-westerly is given a 272m summit height based on an
892ft (271.9m) levelled height on old Ordnance Survey 1:10,560 and 1:2,500 maps,
whilst the more south-easterly summit is given a 270m summit height based on an
886ft (270.1m) levelled height on the series of Ordnance Survey Six-Inch
maps. However, each summit has obstruction
from woodland to their immediate south-west, and although I wanted to visit and
survey each, I did not know whether I would succeed, this being dependent upon no
estate workers being on the hill, and also upon satellite coverage and the
performance of the Trimble.
Having surveyed Grendon
Green / The Firs (SO 599 573) and Hegdon Hill (SO 585 539) earlier in the
morning, I drove south toward the small hamlet of Trumpet and turned on to the
A 438 road and then south on minor lanes leading toward Seager Hill.
I parked close to a
small quarry before the road crests the south-eastern ridge and descends to the
small community of Woolhope Cockshoot, as I gathered all necessary equipment
and grabbed my rucksack I heard shooting from what I thought to be the high
wood close to the summit of each hill, this didn’t fill me with much hope for
the task at hand, but as long as I was quiet and apologetic if meeting any
estate workers I thought I may get away with my clandestine visit.
An advantage with
approaching the hills from this direction is that a track marked as a bridleway
leads toward a large barn, from which a public footpath heads over a grazing
field to the hill ridge, from where it’s only a short walk to the south-easterly
summit. All seemed quiet as I set off up
the track, thankfully the shooting had stopped for now, and I made good
progress. Once on the ridge I turned
left and followed a green track between the wooded steep southerly slopes and a
hedge with the pastured green grazing fields to the north.
 |
| The bridleway leading up the track to the large barn |
The summit area for the
south-easterly hill is relatively flat for 20-30 metres or so, with its highest
point positioned close to, but thankfully not in the wooded area to the
south. I spent a number of minutes
assessing the lay of land and moved the set-up position about 5 metres further
north-west as I thought this ground a teense bit higher.
 |
| The summit of Seager Hill South Top |
As the Trimble slowly
crept down to its 0.1m accuracy level before data should be logged I stood and
waited, took a few photos and listened out as another two gun shots echoed
across the land. Once the accuracy level
was attained I pressed ‘Log’ and waited for the allotted five minutes of data
to be gathered.
 |
| Gathering data at the summit of Seager Hill South Top |
Having packed the
Trimble away I was now on a there and back route heading north-west firstly on
the green track and then on a forest track, before leaving the former a walker headed
up from the forest track, I asked if he was out for a walk or was he also
bagging hills, out on a walk he replied explaining that he was following the
ridge, I asked if he had encountered any estate workers or pheasant shooters
and he said no, this put me at ease and when I reached the forest track more
gunshots echoed out across the land but from further south, which meant that as
long as the Trimble could pick up satellite reception on what is recognised as
the higher of the two summits, I should get away with my clandestine visit.
One large felled tree
had stopped any vehicle access on the continuation of the forest track as it
slowly gained height; this was easily bi-passed for a walker on its
north-easterly side. The track led to a
locked gate where a fence gave access to open hillside leading to the 264m map
heighted trig pillar atop what is named as Bunker’s Hill on Ordnance Survey
maps.
 |
| The trig pillar on top of Bunker's Hill |
From here a muddied path
led down to the connecting col with Seager Hill with a green vehicle track then
leading up to the area of its summit with mature woodland on the left and a
mature hedge on the right. After reaching
what seemed to be the high point I spent a number of minutes walking back and
forth assessing the lay of land, the high point was definitely just in the
wooded area, which was unfortunate for what I wanted to do, this was about 3
metres from the south-westerly edge of the green vehicle track, however the
land also looked relatively flat for quite some distance close to the green
vehicle track as it continued in a north-western direction. I stomped around in the wooded area looking
for what I thought was the high point, choosing my spot I assembled the Trimble
on top of my rucksack, measured the offset between its internal antenna and the
ground below and then started the long wait for the 0.1m accuracy level to be
attained.
 |
| Seager Hill from Bunker's Hill |
I knew I was in for a
long wait as the Trimble was placed next to a conifer tree with another close
by, and with a mature hedge across the other side of the green vehicle track, I
thought I may be there waiting for at least 40 minutes, and even then the
accuracy level may never be attained. I
waited and waited, occasionally scampering back to the Trimble to have a quick
look at the accuracy level as it slowly ebbed down to 0.1m. In instances like this I usually check the
Trimble every five minutes, but realising this would probably be a very long
wait I checked the accuracy every ten minutes.
During this wait I walked further down the green vehicle track looking
back as I did, eye sight alone is not ideal for judging such things as height
differences, but after surveying more than 400 P30s with the Trimble one gets
attuned to such things, but still an optical implement is always favourable,
however I judged that the Trimble set-up position was the best that eyesight
alone could achieve.
 |
| The Trimble set-up position at the summit of Seager Hill |
 |
| The continuation of the green vehicle track on Seager Hill |
After 20 minutes of
waiting I scampered back to the Trimble expecting to see that it had crept down
from 0.26m to about 0.18m accuracy, but there on the screen was the magical
0.1m, I pressed ‘Log’ as quickly as I could and stepped away and stood behind a
tree with a large smile on my face.
 |
| The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data at the summit of Seager Hill |
As I stood smiling away
thinking how impressive the bit of kit that the Trimble is I thought I’d better
collect ten, instead of the customary five minutes of data, this would give 600
individual data points instead of the customary 300 for the equipment to
process, and the more the better as the position of the Trimble wedged on the
periphery of a large conifer plantation was not ideal.
Once ten minutes of data
were gathered and stored I closed the Trimble down, packed it away and retraced
my inward route back to where the public footpath crested the ridge, and then
followed it down to the bridleway on the track beside the large barn, which
brought me back to my awaiting car.
 |
| Looking back on the descent from near the large barn at the forest track leading toward the summit of Bunker's Hill |
Survey Result:
Seager Hill South Top
Summit Height: 271.5m (converted to OSGM15) (significant height revision)
Summit Grid Reference: SO 62418 37928
Drop: 21m
Dominance: 7.56%
Seager Hill
Summit Height: 271.7m (converted to OSGM15) (significant height revision)
Summit Grid Reference: SO 61360 38941
Drop: c 167m
Dominance: 61.35%
No comments:
Post a Comment