Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – Y Trichant and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales

Mynydd Penlle’rcastell (SN 664 095)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Y Trichant and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales, with the summit height, its location and drop of the hill initially confirmed by LIDAR analysis and subsequently by a summit survey with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 which were conducted by Myrddyn Phillips, with latter taking place on the 1^st August 2018.

Mynydd Penlle'rcastell (SN 664 095)

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

Y Trichant – Welsh hills at or above 300m and below 400m in height that have 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub list entitled the Sub-Trichant with the criteria for this sub category being all Welsh hills at or above 300m and below 400m in height with 20m or more and below 30m of drop.  The list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips, with the Introduction to the list and its renaming appearing on Mapping Mountains on the 13^th May 2017.

Y Trechol - The Dominant Hills of Wales - Welsh P30 hills whose prominence  equal or exceed half that of their absolute height.  With the criteria for Lesser Dominant status being those addition Welsh P30 hills whose prominence is 33.33% or more and below 50% of their absolute height, with the Introduction to the Mapping Mountains publication of this list appearing on the 3^rd December 2015.

LIDAR image of Mynydd Penlle'rcastell

The hill is the highest in its own group, therefore it is adjoined to the Mynydd Penlle’rcastell range of hills which are situated in the western part of South Wales (Region C, Sub-Region C1), and it is positioned with the Afon Llwchwr (River Loughor) to its west and the A 474 to its north and east, and has the town of Rhydaman (Ammanford) to its north-west.

The hill appeared in the original Welsh P30 lists under the 300m height band on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website, under the name of Mynydd y Betws, which is a name consistently applied to the northern part of this hill on Ordnance Survey maps.

Mynydd y Betws

371m

SN665094

159

165/178

Marilyn. Clem/Yeaman. 374m on 1987 1:50000 map. Trig pillar at 339m to the North-West.

 

During my early hill listing I paid little regard to name placement on the map, or the meaning of names and to what feature the name was appropriately applied to.  Therefore I prioritised names for listing purposes that I now understand are either inappropriate or where another name is viewed as being more appropriate.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger map

There are three names that are consistently applied to the upper part of this hill on Ordnance Survey maps, these are:

Mynydd y Betws, which appears on the northern part of the hill.

Penlle’rcastell, which appears close to its summit.

Mynydd y Gwair, which appears on the southern part of the hill.

Having these three names consistently appearing on Ordnance Survey maps for the upper part of this hill indicates that there is a boundary between where these names are applicable to.  Therefore, the Tithe map was consulted.

The term Tithe map is generally given to a map of a Welsh or English parish or township and which was prepared after the 1836 Tithe Commutation Act.  This act allowed tithes to be paid in cash rather than goods.  The Tithe maps gave names of owners and occupiers of land in each parish and importantly for place-name research they also included the name of enclosed land.  This enclosed land is usually based on a field system, however not every field is given a name, but many are and especially so in Wales.  However, in this instance the upper part of this hill is open and it is named Mynydd Penlle’rcastell on the Tithe map.

Extract from the Tithe map

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the Y Trichant and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales is Mynydd Penlle’rcastell, and this name was derived from the Tithe map.

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Mynydd Penlle’rcastell

Name:  Mynydd Penlle’rcastell

Previously Listed Name:  Mynydd y Betws

OS 1:50,000 map:  159

Summit Height:  373.3m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 66498 09531

Bwlch Height:  166.4m (LIDAR)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 69945 09589 (LIDAR)

Drop:  206.9m (Trimble summit and LIDAR bwlch)

Dominance:  55.42% (Trimble summit and LIDAR bwlch)

For details on the summit survey of Mynydd Penlle’rcastell

Myrddyn Phillips (January 2019)