Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales

Banc y Bont (SN 750 758) – Sub-Trichant addition

There has been an addition to the list of 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 LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips. 

LIDAR image of Banc y Bont (SN 750 758)

The criteria for the list that this addition 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 13^th May 2017, and the Introduction to the Mapping Mountains publication of the list appearing on the 1^st January 2022. 

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

The name the hill is listed by is Banc y Bont, and it is adjoined to the Y Garn group of hills, which are situated in the northern part of South Wales (Region B, Sub-Region B1), and it is positioned with the B4574 road to its north, the B4343 road to its west and the B4574 road to its south, and has the village of Pontarfynach (Devil’s Bridge) towards the north-west.

When the original 300m height band of Welsh P30 hills were published on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website, this hill was not included in the Hills to be surveyed sub list, as it was considered not to meet the criteria then used for this sub category.

After the sub list was standardised, and interpolated heights and drop values also included the details for this hill were re-evaluated and it was listed with an estimated c 19m of drop, based on the 382m summit spot height that appeared on the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website and which was entitled the Interactive Coverage Map and an estimated c 363m bwlch height based on interpolation of 10m contouring between 360m – 370m. 

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

One of the mapping resources now available online is on the Magic Maps website which hosts an interactive map originated from Ordnance Survey data.  Until recently this mapping had many spot heights not on other publicly available maps and for this hill it also had a 382m summit spot height. 

Extract from the interactive mapping hosted on the Magic Maps website

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 Sub-Trichant status is due to LIDAR analysis, resulting in a 382.3m summit height and a 362.15m bwlch height, with these values giving this hill 20.1m of drop, which is sufficient for it to be classified as a Sub-Trichant. 

 

The full details for the hill are: 

Group:  Y Garn 

Name:  Banc y Bont 

OS 1:50,000 map:  135, 147

Summit Height:  382.3m (LIDAR)                                                           

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 75022 75857 & SN 75024 75858 (LIDAR) 

Bwlch Height:  362.15m (LIDAR) 

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 75080 75718 (LIDAR) 

Drop:  20.1m (LIDAR) 

 

Myrddyn Phillips (February 2023)