Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – Marilyns

Lovely Seat (SD 879 950) – Marilyn reclassified to Submarilyn

This is one in a series of retrospective Hill Reclassification posts that detail hills whose status has altered in the listing of the English Marilyns.  These reclassification posts will give details of hills where I have had direct association with their change of status, and they will tie in with a forthcoming Change Register giving detail to this list and its alterations since publication in the TACit Tables booklet

The listing of English Marilyns was published in booklet format by TACit Tables in June 1997 and entitled The Hewitts and Marilyns of England.  The Marilyns were originally listed as an all British compilation and were published by Cicerone Press in 1992 in the book entitled The Relative Hills of Britain.  The list compiler for the Marilyns is Alan Dawson.

When the English Marilyns list was published in booklet format there were 178 qualifying hills with a further 39 English Submarilyns also included.  The criteria for Marilyn status being any hill that has a drop of at least 150m, irrespective of their height, with the criteria for Submarilyn being any hill that has 140m or more and below 150m of drop.

The Hewitts and Marilyns of England by Alan Dawson

The details for the hill reclassification appear below:

The name of the hill is Lovely Seat, and it is situated in the Northern Fells of the Yorkshire Dales, and is positioned with the B6270 road to its north-east and the A684 road to its south-west, and has the small town of Hawes towards the south.

Prior to this hill’s reclassification to Submarilyn status it was listed as a Marilyn with c 150m of drop, based on the 675m summit height that appears as a spot height on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger map and an estimated col height of c 525m based on interpolation of 10m contouring between 520m – 530m.

The Leica 530 gathering data at the col of Lovely Seat

As its c 150m listed drop value was the minimum required for Marilyn status it was prioritised for a GNSS survey and this took place on the 13^th May 2010.  The summit and col of this hill were surveyed by John Barnard, Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips using a Leica 530 with 50 minutes of data gathered at each point.  Also present during the survey were Stephen Edwards and Llion Iwan who were filming the proceedings.  The survey resulted in a 674.8m summit height and a 525.7m col height, with these values giving this hill 149.1m of drop.

The Leica 530 gathering data at the summit of Lovely Seat

The reclassification of this hill from Marilyn to Submarilyn status was accepted by the list author; Alan Dawson, and its new classification augmented in to the listing of Marilyns in May 2010.

The full details for the hill are:

Name:  Lovely Seat

OS 1:50,000 map:  98

OS 1:25,000 map:  19, 30

Summit Height:  674.8m (converted to OSGM15)

Summit Grid Reference:  SD 87904 95043

Col Height:  525.7m (converted to OSGM15)

Col Grid Reference:  SD 86824 95469

Drop:  149.1m

Myrddyn Phillips (February 2020)