Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – Yr Uchafion and 500m Twmpau

Glanfeinion Hill (SO 033 846)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Yr Uchafion and 500m Twmpau, with the summit height, drop and status of the hill being confirmed by a Leica 530 survey conducted by John Barnard, Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips on the 10^th February 2010, with a subsequent Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit survey conducted by Myrddyn Phillips on the 4^th August 2018.

Glanfeinion Hill (SO 033 846)

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

Yr Uchafion – Welsh hills at or above 500m in height that have 15m minimum drop.  The list is co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams, with the Introduction to this list appearing on Mapping Mountains on the 4^th November 2015.

500m Twmpau – Welsh hills at or above 500m and below 600m in height that have 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub category entitled the 500m Sub-Twmpau consisting of all Welsh hills at or above 500m and below 600m in height that have 20m or more and below 30m of drop.  With the word Twmpau being an acronym standing for thirty welsh metre prominences and upward.  The list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips.

The hill is adjoined to the Pegwn Mawr group of hills which are situated in the Mid and West Wales Region (Region B, Sub-Region B1), and it is positioned with the A 470 road and the Afon Hafren (River Severn) to its north-west and the A 483 road to its east, and has the small community of Llandinam towards the north and the town of Llanidloes towards the west.

The hill first made an appearance in an unpublished hill list in 1985 when Tony Blackburn listed it as top N Caelluest in The 500 Metre Tops of England and Wales.  When this hill was first included in the listings that later became known as Yr Uchafion and the 500m Twmpau it was listed by the name of Waun Lluestowain.  This is a name that appeared to the east of this hill’s summit on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps of the day.

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

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.

It was during the compilation of the Yr Uchafion list that I first made place-name enquiries with local farmers, grazers and landowners and this hill was one of the first that I enquired about.  This was so early in my place-name enquiries that I had not at that stage started to document each enquiry that would later be done in a systematic way.  Therefore I have no record of who I spoke to.  However, the person did have association with the land that this hill is situated on and he told me that it is known as Glanfeinion Hill after the landowning farm of Glanfeinion which is situated to the west north-west of its summit.

The Leica 530 gathering data at the summit of Glanfeinion Hill

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data at the summit of Glanfeinion Hill

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the Yr Uchafion and the 500m Twmpau is Glanfeinion Hill and this was derived from local enquiry.

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Pegwn Mawr

Name:  Glanfeinion Hill

Previously Listed Name:  Waun Lluestowain

OS 1:50,000 map:  136

Summit Height:  534.9m (converted to OSGM15, Leica 530)

Summit Grid Reference:  SO 03338 84670 (Leica 530)

Bwlch Height:  506.5m (converted to OSGM15, Leica 530)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SO 03043 83053 (Leica 530)

Drop:  28.4m (converted to OSGM15, Leica 530)

For details on the Trimble summit survey of this hill

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (January 2019)