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

Banc yr Haul (SN 802 828)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Yr Uchafion and 500m Twmpau, with the drop and status of the hill initially determined by a basic levelling survey conducted by Myrddyn Phillips on the 22^nd July 2000 and confirmed by a level and staff line survey conducted by Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips on the 19^th February 2010, with subsequent LIDAR summit analysis conducted by Aled Williams and the summit height, bwlch height and their locations determined by a Trimble GeoXH 6000 survey conducted by Myrddyn Phillips on the 10^th April 2019.

Banc yr Haul (SN 802 828)

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 Elenydd group of hills which are situated in the central part of the Mid and West Wales Region (Region B, Sub-Region B2), and it is positioned with the A44 road to its west, north and east, and has the villages of Ponterwyd towards the west south-west and Llangurig towards the east south-east.

Graham during the line survey of Banc yr Haul

Graham beside the summit of Banc yr Haul during our line survey

The hill first made an appearance in a hill list in 1997 when John Kirk listed it in his Kirk’s BIG Mountain List as Hirgoed Ddu (S), using a name that appeared to the north of the hill on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps of the day, this list remains unpublished but is available via enquiry with the author.

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 directional name of Cripiau South South-east Top, with this name being taken from the hill positioned to its north north-west.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer 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 if a hill was seemingly unnamed on the map I either invented a name or used a combination of a directional name for it.  This is not a practice that I now advocate as with time and inclination place-name information can be improved either by historic research and / or local enquiry.

It was during the compilation of the Yr Uchafion list that I first made place-name enquiries with local farmers, grazers and landowners, during this process there were many people who gave me an enormous amount of information and one of these was Erwyd Howells who worked as a shepherd, and is now an author and another person who realises the insignificant and importance of documenting upland place-names, and it was Erwyd who gave the name of Banc yr Haul for this hill.

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data at the summit of Banc yr Haul

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

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Elenydd

Name:  Banc yr Haul

Previously Listed Name:  Cripiau South South-east Top

OS 1:50,000 map:  135, 136

Summit Height:  525.6m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 80202 82864

Bwlch Height:  495.0m (converted to OSGM15)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 80293 82632

Drop:  30.6m (line survey and Trimble GeoXH 6000)

For details on the Trimble survey of this hill

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (August 2019)