Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – The Fours – The 400m Hills of England

Weather Hill (NY 929 391) – 400m Sub-Four addition

There has been an addition to the listing of the The Fours – The 400m Hills of England, with the summit height, col height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill prompted by Joe Nuttall who produced a summit analysis programme using LIDAR, and then confirmed by LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips. 

LIDAR image of Weather Hill (NY 929 391)

The criteria for the list that this addition applies to are:

The Fours – The 400m Hills of England.  English hills at or above 400m and below 500m in height that have 30m minimum drop, accompanying the main list are three categories of sub hills, with this hill being included in the 400m Sub-Four category, the criteria for which are all English hills at or above 400m and below 500m in height that have 20m or more and below 30m of drop.  The list is co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams and the 2^nd edition of the booklet containing this list was published by Mapping Mountains Publications on the 24^th April 2018.

The Fours - The 400m Hills of England by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams

The name the hill is listed by is Weather Hill and it is adjoined to the Burnhope Seat group of hills (Region 35, Section 35A: The Northern Pennines), and it is positioned with minor roads to its north, west and east, and the A689 road to its south, and has the town of Stanhope towards the east.

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

When the 2^nd edition of the The Fours – The 400m Hills of England was published by Mapping Mountains Publications in April 2018, this hill was not included in the accompanying sub list, as it was considered not to meet the criteria used for this sub category, based on the hill being a part of a quarry and therefore contemporary Ordnance Survey maps do not show any meaningful contours. 

Extract from the WalkLakes website showing the hill with contours

However, it was not until LIDAR became available that the details for 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.

Therefore, the addition of this hill to 400m Sub-Four status is due to LIDAR analysis, resulting in a 410.0m summit height and a 389.0m col height, with these values giving this hill 21.0m of drop, which is sufficient for it to be classified as a 400m Sub-Four. 

 

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Burnhope Seat

Name:  Weather Hill

OS 1:50,000 map:  91, 92

Summit Height:  410.0m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  NY 92906 39126 (LIDAR)

Col Height:  389.0m (LIDAR)

Col Grid Reference:  NY 93281 39255 (LIDAR)

Drop:  21.0m (LIDAR)

 

Our thanks to Ronnie Bowron for bringing the details of this hill to our attention.

For the additions, deletions and reclassifications to The Fours – The 400m Hills of England reported on Mapping Mountains since the December 2013 publication of the 1^st edition of this list by Europeaklist please consult the following Change Registers:

 

The Fours

 

The Fours – 400m Sub-Four

 

The Fours – 390m Sub-Four

 

The Fours – 390m Double Sub-Four

 

Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (November 2022)