Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – 100m Twmpau and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales

The Beech (ST 346 974)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the 100m Twmpau and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales, 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 The Beech (ST 346 974)

The criteria for the two listings that this name change 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.

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 additional Welsh P30 hills whose prominence is between one third and half that of their absolute height.  The list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips with the Introduction to the start of the Mapping Mountains publication of this list appearing on the 3^rd December 2015.

The hill is adjoined to the Cymoedd Gwent group of hills, which are situated in the eastern part of South Wales (Region C, Sub-Region C2), and it has a number of A roads encircling it with the A4042 to its west, the A472 to its north, the A449 to its east and the M4 motorway towards its south, and has the town of Brynbuga (Usk) towards its north-east.

The hill originally appeared in the 100m P30 list on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website under the name of Craig y Saeson, which is a name that appears to the north-east of this hill’s summit on contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer maps.

Craig y Saeson

184m

ST345974

171

152

 

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, and as this hill comprises bounded land the Tithe map was consulted and this confirms that the name Craig y Saeson is applicable to enclosed land to the north-east of this hill’s summit and not to the summit area of this hill or the hill itself.

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

Since publication of these P30 lists on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website there have been a number of Ordnance Survey maps made available online, some of these are historic such as the series of Six-Inch maps on the National Library of Scotland website, whilst others are current and digitally updated such as the Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website, and which is entitled the Interactive Coverage Map.  In the case of this hill it is the series of Ordnance Survey Six-Inch maps that record the name of The Beech for the land at or adjacent to where the summit of this hill is situated.

Extract from the series of Ordnance Survey Six-Inch maps

Therefore the name this hill is now listed by in the 100m Twmpau and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales is The Beech, and this was derived from the series of Ordnance Survey Six-Inch maps. 

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Cymoedd Gwent

Name:  The Beech

Previously Listed Name:  Craig y Saeson 

OS 1:50,000 map:  171

Summit Height:  185.4m (LIDAR, natural summit)

Summit Grid Reference:  ST 34645 97459 (LIDAR, natural summit)

Bwlch Height:  89.0m (LIDAR)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  ST 34479 98091 (LIDAR)

 

Drop:  96.4m (LIDAR)

Dominance:  51.98% (LIDAR)

Myrddyn Phillips (August 2019)