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

Cripiau South Top (SN 802 828) – 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 Cripiau South Top (SN 802 828) 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 Cripiau South Top, and it is adjoined to the Rhayader group of hills which are situated in the western part of Wales, and it is positioned with the A44 road to its north, and has the town of Llanidloes towards the east.

The Name: Cripiau South Top is an invented and directional name based on this hill’s proximity to the adjacent and lower hill of Cripiau (SN 798 836).  The hill remains unnamed on contemporary Ordnance Survey maps.

This hill was not included in the original 1995 Constable publication, but with a 524m summit spot height and bwlch contouring between 490m – 500m that appear on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer map, the interpolated drop value was estimated sufficient for this hill to be a potential new Dewey.

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

The above detail was noted by Myrddyn Phillips who then conducted a basic levelling survey (BLS) of this hill on the 22^nd July 2000, resulting in 100ft / 30.5m of drop.  These details were forwarded to the list author; Michael Dewey and the hill was added to the list with the date of survey given in the Remarks column accompanying the list.

Testing conditions during the line survey

Graham Jackson at the summit of Cripiau South Top during the line survey

As the result from the BLS was near the minimum 30m qualifying drop value this hill was prioritised for a line survey which took place on the 19^th February 2010 and which was conducted by Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips, resulting in 30.6m of drop; confirming this hill’s Dewey status.

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 gathering data at the summit of Cripiau South Top

This hill was subsequently surveyed using a GNSS receiver, and this took place on the 1o^th April 2019.  The summit and bwlch of this hill were surveyed by Myrddyn Phillips using a Trimble GeoXH 6000, resulting in a 525.6m summit height and a 495.0m bwlch height, with these values giving this hill 30.6m of drop.

The full details for the hill are:

Name:  Cripiau South Top

OS 1:50,000 map:  135, 136

OS 1:25,000 map:  213, 214

Summit Height:  525.6m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 80202 82864 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Bwlch Height:  495.0m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 80293 82632 (Trimble GeoXH 6000)

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

Myrddyn Phillips (July 2020)