Watch Hill (NY 624 460) – Dewey deletion
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.
Watch Hill (NY 624 460) |
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:
25th
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:
29th
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.
25th
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 deletion appear below:
The name the hill was listed by in the Deweys is Watch
Hill, and it is adjoined to the Black Fell group of hills which are situated in
the northern Pennines of England, and it is positioned with the B6413 road to
its west, the A686 road to its south-east and the A689 road to its north-east,
and has the village of Renwick towards the south-west.
This hill was not included in the original 1995
Constable publication, but
with a 602m summit spot height and col
contouring between 570m – 580m 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 considered a potential new Dewey.
Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map |
The above detail was noted by David Purchase who
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 28th
July 2001.
Since the inclusion of this hill in the Dewey list
the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website and which
is entitled the Interactive Coverage Map became available online. This mapping had many spot heights not on
other publicly available Ordnance Survey maps and gave a 574m spot height on
the area of this hill’s col, and when coupled with the 602m summit spot height
these values gave this hill 29m of drop.
As the drop value for this hill was near the
minimum 30m qualifying mark, this hill was prioritised for a line survey which
was conducted by John Barnard, Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips on the 22nd
August 2012, resulting in 29.0m of drop and this hill’s subsequent deletion
from Dewey status.
The full details for the
hill are:
Name: Watch Hill
OS 1:50,000 map: 86
OS 1:25,000 map: 31
Summit Height: 603m (relative to 602m spot height)
Summit Grid
Reference: NY 62495 46038 (hand-held GPS
during line survey)
Col Height: 574m (spot height and relative to 602m spot
height and line surveyed drop)
Col Grid Reference: NY 62090 45937 (hand-held GPS during line
survey)
Drop: 29.0m (level and staff line survey)
Myrddyn Phillips
(September 2020)