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

AS LATEST LIDAR ANALYSIS GIVES WOOD BARROW AS HIGHER THAN CHAPMAN BARROWS THE QUALIFYING HILL IS NOW LISTED AS WOOD BARROW (SS 716 425)

Chapman Barrows (SS 700 434)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the 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 LIDAR analysis conducted by Aled Williams. 

LIDAR image of Chapman Barrows (SS 700 434) and Wood Barrow (SS 716 425)

The criteria for the list that this summit relocation 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 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 Dunkery Beacon group of hills, which are situated in the counties of Somerset and Devon, and it is positioned with the A39 road to its north-west and the B3358 road to its south, and has the small community of Parracombe towards the west north-west.

This hill was not included when the listing that is now known as The Fours - The 400m Hills of Engalnd was originally compiled, as it did not meet the criteria then used for the Hills to be surveyed sub list, and therefore it was not included when the list was uploaded to the RHB Yahoo group file database.

When the 1^st edition of the The Fours was published by Europeaklist in December 2013, the qualifying 400m Sub-Four hill was listed as Wood Barrow (SS 716 425) with 22m of drop, based on the 480m summit spot height that appears on the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer map and a 458m col height, based on the spot height that appears on the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, with an accompanying note stating:

Although Chapman Barrows at SS 700 434 has a 480m map height, it is not listed as a twin Sub-Four as its 480.093m flush bracket height means ground at the base of the trig pillar will be below 480m.

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

However, it was not until LIDAR became available that the details for the summit of this hill could be accurately re-assessed.  The LIDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) technique produced highly accurate height data that is now freely available for much of England and Wales.

LIDAR analysis gives the higher summit to Chapman Barrows positioned at SS 70003 43472, therefore this is a significant name change based on the qualifying summit having been relocated from the originally listed summit of Wood Barrow. 

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in The Fours - The 400m Hills of England is Chapman Barrows and this was instigated from a summit relocation. 

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Dunkery Beacon

Name:  Chapman Barrows

Previously Listed Name:  Wood Barrow

OS 1:50,000 map:  180

Summit Height:  479.8m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  SS 70003 43472 (LIDAR) 

 

Col Height:  457.4m (LIDAR)

Col Grid Reference:  SS 72610 42583 (LIDAR)

Drop:  22.4m (LIDAR) 

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (April 2019)