Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – The 500-Metre Tops of England and Wales – Deweys

Craig y Moch (Craig Fach) (SH 634 552) – Dewey addition

This is one in a series of retrospective Hill Reclassification posts that detail hills whose status has altered in the listing of the Deweys and where I have had direct association with the status change.  These posts will tie in with a forthcoming Change Register giving detail to this list and its alterations since publication in the Mountain tables book.

The hill listed as Craig y Moch (Craig Fach) (SH 634 552) in the Deweys

The 500-Metre Tops of England and Wales are affectionately known after their hill list compiler; Michael Dewey.  This list mixes metric and imperial height in its criteria to bookend up to the 2000ft height band and takes in all hills in England, Isle of Man and Wales that are 500m and above and below 2000ft (609.6m) in height that have 30m minimum drop.

This list formed one of a number of lists that appeared in the Mountain tables book published by Constable in 1995 and at the time of publication comprised 373 hills with 164 in England, 5 in the Isle of Man and 204 in Wales.  The Deweys have undergone extensive revision since first publication with the initial stages forming the basis of this revision given below:

1995    Mountain tables published by Constable with 373 hills listed as Deweys.

April 2000    Strider (LDWA quarterly booklet) publishes contact details for David Purchase and Myrddyn Phillips who have found and list 24 and 14 possible new 500m tops respectively.

It was expanded versions of the above two lists that formed the basis of the next publication:

25^th May 2000    List of Possible 500 Metre Tops by Michael Dewey listing 44 hills.

David Purchase expands his Additional Dewey 500m Hills and Myrddyn Phillips produces lists of English 500m hills to measure and Welsh 500m hills to measure.

These lists formed the basis of the next publication:

29^th June 2000    Possible/Probable 500’s by Michael Dewey listing 77 hills.  Michael adopts following protocol; if one person proposes that a top should qualify as a 500 by personal survey, and is then confirmed by a second person, it should then be promoted to the main list.

April 2002    The 500+ Tops of England and Wales – The ‘New Deweys’ published in the Strider booklet and listing 66 new qualifying hills.

25^th May 2006    Rob Woodall republishes Michael’s main and possible/probable lists on the RHB Yahoo group file database. 

Mountain tables by Michael Dewey

The details for this addition appear below:

The name the hill is listed by in the Deweys is Craig y Moch (Craig Fach), and it is adjoined to the Yr Wyddfa group of hills which are situated in the north-western part of north Wales, and it is positioned with the A4086 road to its north, the A4085 road to its west and the A498 road to its south-east, and has the village of Beddgelert towards the south-west.

The Name: Craig y Moch is an invented name partly transposed from the bwlch to the west of this hill’s summit.  This is the originating name in the Dewey list with the use of the bracketed Craig Fach a later addition with this name relating to a near crag and not necessarily the hill.

This hill was not included in the original 1995 Constable publication, but with a 609m summit spot height that appears on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer map and a 569m bwlch spot height that appears on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, this hill had 40m of drop according to contemporary Ordnance Survey maps and therefore was an automatic entry to the listing of Deweys.

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

The above detail was noted by David Purchase and Myrddyn Phillips who worked independently but also exchanged all data, with David having assessed the hill’s qualification on site.  These details were forwarded to the list author; Michael Dewey and the hill was added to the list on the 3^rd May 2000 under the name of Craig y Moch, with the bracketed Craig Fach being a later addition.

Surveying the summit of the hill listed as Craig y Moch (Craig Fach) in the Deweys

As its 609m summit sp0t height is near the benchmark height of 2000ft (609.6m) this hill was prioritised for a GNSS survey by John Barnard who approached Leica Geosystems suggesting that a joint survey with the fledgling team of G&J Surveys could take place.  Leica Geosystems were enthusiastic for this to happen and the hill was surveyed on the 11^th August 2008 by James Whitworth of Leica Geosystems using a Leica SmartRover 1200, resulting in a 608.8m summit height and this hill’s retention as a Dewey.

The full details for the hill are:

Name:  Craig y Moch (Craig Fach)

OS 1:50,000 map:  115

OS 1:25,000 map:  17

Summit Height:  608.8m (Leica SmartRover 1200)

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 63495 55248 (Leica SmartRover 1200)

Bwlch Height:  569m (spot height)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 63329 55253 (spot height)

Drop:  40m (Leica SmartRover 1200 summit and spot height bwlch)

Myrddyn Phillips (April 2020)