Mapping Mountains – Significant Height Revisions – 100m Twmpau

Pedwar Erw (SS 864 837)

There has been a Significant Height Revision to a hill that is now listed in the 100m Twmpau, with the summit height, bwlch height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill confirmed by LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips.

LIDAR image of Pedwar Erw

The criteria for the list that this height revision applies to are:

100m Twmpau - Welsh hills at or above 100m and below 200m in height with 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub list entitled the 100m Sub-Twmpau with the criteria for this sub category being all Welsh hills at or above 100m and below 200m in height with 20m or more and below 30m of drop, with the word Twmpau being an acronym standing for thirty welsh metre prominences and upward.

The name of the enclosed land that once comprised ground where the summit of this hill is situated is Pedwar Erw, and this was derived from the Tithe map and it is this name that the hill is now listed by.  The hill is adjoined to the Cymoedd Morgannwg group of hills, which are situated in the central part of South Wales (Region C, Sub-Region C2), and it forms a part of landscaped ground that once made up the Margam opencast mine, and is encircled by minor roads to its north, west and east and has the B4281 road and the small communities of Cefn Cribwr and Kenfig Hill towards its south.

This hill did not appear in the original 100m height band of Welsh P30 hills when they were published on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website as contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer maps of the day showed the opencast mine without any ring contours of note.

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

This area was re-examined when the OS Maps website became available online.  This is the replacement for OS Get-a-map and has contours at 5m intervals and for the majority of land comprising old mine workings it shows present day contours, as opposed to the blank space showed on the counterparts of the 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer maps.

Extract from the OS Maps website

However, it was not until LIDAR became available that the details for 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 summit image of Pedwar Erw

The summit height produced by LIDAR analysis is 131.0m, this is a substantial revision compared to some revised heights, and it comes within the parameters of the Significant Height Revisions used within this page heading, these parameters are:

The term Significant Height Revisions applies to any listed hill whose interpolated height and Ordnance Survey or Harvey map summit spot height has a 2m or more discrepancy when compared to the survey result produced by the Trimble GeoXH 6000 or analysis of data produced via LIDAR, also included are hills whose summit map data is missing an uppermost ring contour when compared to the data produced by the Trimble or by LIDAR analysis.  As heights on different scaled Ordnance Survey maps are not consistent the height given on the 1:25,000 Explorer map is being prioritised in favour of the 1:50,000 Landranger map for detailing these revisions.

Therefore, this hill’s new listed summit height is 131.0m and this was produced by LIDAR analysis, this is 31m higher than the highest contour that appears on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, and this is only a partial contour as it soon disappears in to the blank space associated with mine workings that appears on many contemporary Ordnance Survey maps.

ills of Wales, and are reproduced below@

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Cymoedd Morgannwg

Name:  Pedwar Erw

OS 1:50,000 map:  170

Summit Height (New height):  131.0m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  SS 86413 83767 (LIDAR) 

 

Bwlch Height:  98.4m (LIDAR)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SS 86635 84031 (LIDAR)

Drop:  32.5m (LIDAR)

Myrddyn Phillips (May 2019)