Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – The Fours

Crumma Pasture (NZ 085 061)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in The Fours, with this being announced when the 2^nd edition of The Fours was published by Mapping Mountains Publications on the 24^th April 2018.

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

The Fours – English hills at or above 400m and below 500m in height that have 30m minimum drop.  Accompanying the main list of The Fours are three categories of sub hills, with this hill listed as a 390m Sub-Four.  The criteria for 390m Sub-Four status are all English hills at or above 390m and below 400m in height that have 30m minimum drop.

The list is co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams, with the 1^st edition of the list having been published by Europeaklist in December 2013 and by Haroldstreet in January 2014, with the 2^nd edition of the list published by Mapping Mountains Publications and by Haroldstreet on the 24^th April 2018.

The hill is situated in the Northern Pennines and is placed in Region 35, Section 35A with its Cardinal Hill being Great Shunner Fell (SD 848 972).  The hill is positioned with the A 66 road to its north-east and the A 6108 road and the town of Richmond towards its south-east.

When the listing that is now known as The Fours was originally compiled this hill was not included as the sub category did not take in hills below 400m in height, however when the list was uploaded to the RHB Yahoo group file database the hill was listed as unnamed summit.  Subsequently the hill was listed as Weather Hill in the 1^st edition of The Fours when the list was published by Europeaklist in December 2013. 

Hill list authors are prone to list a hill by the name that appears nearest to its summit on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, without much consideration for its local or historical confirmation, or whether map placement is appropriate, and in the case of this hill Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer maps position the name of Weather Hill adjacent to a 382m map heighted top and to the north-west of the summit of this hill.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map

Since the original publication of this list on the RHB Yahoo Group file database there have been a number of Ordnance Survey maps made available online, some of these are historical such as the series of Six-Inch maps on the National Library of Scotland website, whilst others are current and digitally updated such as the Interactive Coverage Map hosted on the Geograph website.  Two of the historical maps now available are the Ordnance Survey Draft Surveyors map which formed the basis for the Ordnance Survey One-Inch ‘Old Series’ map, and it was the latter of these maps as well as the Six-Inch map that position the name of Crumma Pasture adjacent to this hill.

The One-Inch ‘Old Series’ was the first map that Ordnance Survey published, and they were based on the preceding Draft Surveyors map.  Their publication culminated from the whole of Britain being surveyed between 1791 and 1874 and the detail gathered therein produced at a scale of one inch to the mile and published in sheet format between 1805 and 1874.  The One-Inch ‘Old Series’ maps for the whole of England are now available online, they are also available in map format as enlarged and re-projected versions to match the scale and dimensions of the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger series and are published by Cassini.  This series of maps forms another important part in the study of upland place-names and bridge the time frame leading to the production of the Ordnance Survey base map of the Six-Inch series.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey One-Inch 'Old Series' map

For many years The Ordnance Survey Six-Inch map was the base map for information to be fed on to, the scale was superseded in the 1950s by the 1:10,000 series of maps and was available as sheets until the 1980s when they were digitised.  One of the recurring themes of Ordnance Survey maps is that some of the data are not consistent between the different scales of maps available, this is particularly noticeable for numerical data between the two publicly available scales of 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer maps.  However, when studying place-names it is also noticeable that name placement and sometimes composition is not consistent between these lower scaled maps and their larger scaled and older maps of the Six-Inch series.  It is also noticeable that some names appear on the Six-Inch map whilst they do not appear on the smaller scaled maps.  Extensive research has shown that place-name data and numerical data on the series of Six-Inch maps, and especially so for the former’s placement, are more appropriate and accurate compared too much of the information on contemporary maps. 

Extract from the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch map published in 1857

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in The Fours is Crumma Pasture and this was derived from the Ordnance Survey One-Inch ‘Old Series’ map as well as the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch map, with map placement for the name of Weather Hill favouring land to the north-west of this hill’s summit.  

The full details for the hill are:

Cardinal Hill:  Great Shunner Fell

Name:  Crumma Pasture

Previously Listed Name:  Weather Hill

 

Summit Height:  392

OS 1:50,000 map:  92

Summit Grid Reference:  NZ 08593 06115  

Drop:  33m

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (June 2018)