Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales

Cefn y Frân (SH 834 606)

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales, with the summit height, bwlch height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill derived from detail on contemporary maps produced from Ordnance Survey data.

The criteria for the list that this name change applies to are:

Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales.  Welsh hills at or above 300m and below 400m in height that have 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub list entitled the Sub-Trichant with the criteria for this sub category being all Welsh hills at or above 300m and below 400m in height with 20m or more and below 30m of drop.  The list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips, with the Introduction to the list and the renaming of it appearing on Mapping Mountains on the 13th May 2017.

Y Trichant - The 300m Hills of Wales by Myrddyn Phillips

The hill is adjoined to the Mynydd Hiraethog group of hills which are situated in the north-eastern part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A2), and it is positioned with the A548 road to its north, the B5427 road to its west and the B5113 road to its east, has the town of Llanrwst towards the west north-west.

The hill appeared in the original Welsh 300m P30 list on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website under the partly invented and transposed name of Pen y Sychnant, with an accompanying note stating; Name from river to the South.

Pen y Sychbaht

380c

SH834607

116

17

Name from river to the South

During my early hill listing I thought it appropriate to either invent a name for a hill, or use a name that appeared near to the summit of the hill on Ordnance Survey maps of the day.  My preference was to use farm names and put Pen, Bryn or Moel in front of them or as in this instance transpose the name of a river and add the word Pen and the definite article y.  This is not a practice that I now advocate as with time and inclination place-name data can be improved either by asking local people or by examining historic documents, through this form of research an appropriate name for the hill can usually be found.

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

Since publication of these P30 lists on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website there have been a number of Ordnance Survey maps made available online, some of these are historic such as the series of Six-Inch maps on the National Library of Scotland website, whilst others are current and digitally updated such as the Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website and which is entitled the Interactive Coverage Map, and it is the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map that uses the name of Cefn Efran, with the series of Six-Inch maps confirming this name’s composition as Cefn y Frân and its placement, with the name given to land that forms a part of this hill.

Extract from the Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales is Cefn y Frân, and this was derived from the Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps.

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Mynydd Hiraethog

Name:  Cefn y Frân

Previously Listed Name:  Pen y Sychnant

OS 1:50,000 map:  116

Summit Height:  c 380m (interpolation)

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 83437 60696 (interpolation)

Bwlch Height:  c 358m (interpolation)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 83408 60865 (interpolation)

Drop:  c 22m (interpolated summit and bwlch)

Myrddyn Phillips (September 2020)