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

Hand Lake (NY 647 006) – 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.

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 deletion appear below:

The name the hill was listed by in the Deweys is Hand Lake, and it is adjoined to the Howgill Fells in the Great Shunner group of hills which are situated in the Yorkshire Dales in England, and it is positioned with the A685 road to its north, the M6 motorway to its west and the A683 road to its east, and has the town of Sedbergh towards the south.

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

This hill was not included in the original 1995 Constable publication, but with a small uppermost 500m ring contour almost hidden behind the ‘e’ of the word Lake and col contouring between 450m – 460m that appear on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, this hill was above 500m in height and had a minimum of 30m of drop according to Ordnance Survey maps of the day and therefore was an automatic entry to the listing of Deweys. 

The small 500m ring contour still appears on contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer maps almost hidden behind the 'e' of the word Lake

The above detail was noted by E. D. ‘Clem’ Clements and once these details were forwarded to the list author; Michael Dewey, the hill was added to the list on the 8^th November 2001.

As the listed summit height was the minimum required for qualification to Dewey status this hill was prioritised for a GNSS survey and this took place on the 24^th November 2010.  The summit of this hill was surveyed by John Barnard, Graham Jackson and Myrddyn Phillips using a Leica 530 with 60 minutes of data gathered.  The survey resulted in a 499.7m summit height and as this is below 500m this hill was subsequently deleted from the list of Deweys.

The Leica 530 gathering data at the summit of Hand Lake

However, it was not until LIDAR became available that the details for the col of this hill could be accurately re-assessed.  The LIDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) technique produced highly accurate height data that is now freely available for much of England and Wales.

LIDAR image of Hand Lake (NY 647 006)

The summit and col heights for this hill were subsequently ascertained from LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips, resulting in the summit height and position matching that produced by the Leica 530 and a 458.9m col height, with these values giving this hill 40.8m of drop.

 

The full details for the hill are:

Name:  Hand Lake

OS 1:50,000 map:  91

OS 1:25,000 map:  19

Summit Height:  499.7m (converted to OSGM15, Leica 530)

Summit Grid Reference:  NY 64726 00610 (Leica 530)

Col Height:  458.9m (LIDAR)

Col Grid Reference:  NY 64952 00223 (LIDAR)

Drop:  40.8m (Leica 530 summit and LIDAR col)

Myrddyn Phillips (September 2020)