Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – The Fours - The 400m Hills of England

Hammond Close (SD 953 648)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in The Fours– The 400m Hills of England, with the summit height, col height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill derived from detail on contemporary maps produced from Ordnance Survey data, with its status subsequently confirmed by LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips.

LIDAR image of Hammond Close (SD 953 648)

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

The Fours – The 400m Hills of England.  English hills at or above 400m and below 500m in height that have 30m minimum drop, accompanying the main list are three categories of sub hills, with this hill now being included in the 400m Sub-Four category, the criteria for which are all English hills at or above 400m and below 500m in height that have 20m or more and below 30m of drop.  The list is co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams and the 2^nd edition of the booklet containing this list was published by Mapping Mountains Publications on the 24^th April 2018.

The Fours - The 400m Hills of England by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams

The hill is adjoined to the Pen  Ghent group of hills, which are situated in the central Pennines, and it is positioned with the B6160 road and the River Wharfe to its east, and has the village of Threshfield towards the east south-east and Malham towards the west south-west.

When the listing that is now known as The Fours - The 400m Hills of England was originally compiled this hill appeared under the name of Malham Moor, which is a prominent name that appears to the north of this hill on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer map, and this was also the name the hill appeared as when the list was uploaded to the RHB Yahoo group file database.  Subsequently the hill was listed under the point (Pt. 411m) notation in the 1^st edition of The Fours when the list was published by Europeaklist in December 2013.    

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

Since the original publication of the Welsh P30 lists on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website there have been a number of maps made available online.  Some of these are historic such as the series of Six-Inch maps on the National Library of Scotland website.  Whilst others were digitally updated such as the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local that was hosted on the Geograph website and which was entitled the Interactive Coverage Map, whilst others are current and digitally updated such as the interactive mapping on the Magic Maps and WalkLakes websites, and it is the series of Ordnance Survey Six-Inch maps that form the basis of the change in the listed name of this hill.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps

The Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps formed the base map Ordnance Survey used for many decades leading to the production of the 1:10,000 Series of maps, both have now been superseded by the digitised Master Map.  The series of Six-Inch maps are excellent for name placement and especially so compared to the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, and it is the series of Six-Inch maps that present the name of Hammond Close close to the summit of this hill.

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in The Fours - The 400m Hills of England is Hammond Close and this derived from the Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps. 

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Pen y Ghent

Name:  Hammond Close

Previously Listed Name:  Pt. 411m (and prior to this; Malham Moor) 

OS 1:50,000 map:  98

Summit Height:  410.1m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  SD 95355 64853 (LIDAR)

  

Col Height:  380.6m (LIDAR)

Col Grid Reference:  SD 95342 65230 (LIDAR)

Drop:  29.5m (LIDAR)

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (July 2018)