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

 

Meal Fell (NY 282 337) – 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.  These posts tie in with a Change Register giving detail to this list and its alterations since publication in the Mountain tables book. 

LIDAR image of Meal Fell (NY 282 337)

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. 

 

Postscript:  Michael Dewey died on the 5^th November 2022.  His wife; Gillian wished for this list to be carried on and made provision for it to be co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips.  Michael will always be the compiler and originator, it’s just that he’s now got a co-author to safeguard and carry this list on. 

Mountain tables by Michael Dewey

The details for this deletion appear below: 

The name the hill was listed by in the Deweys is Meal Fell, and it is adjoined to the Skiddaw group of hills which are situated in the Lake District in England, and it is positioned with the B5299 road to its north, the A591 road to its west and the A66 road to its south, and has the town of Keswick towards the south. 

This hill was not included in the original 1995 Constable publication, but with a 550m summit spot height and col contouring between 520m – 530m 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 a potential new Dewey as the 0pposing 520m ring contours are extremely close together.                                                            

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

The above detail was noted by Rob Woodall and Myrddyn Phillips who worked independently but also exchanged all data, with Rob assessing the hill’s qualification on site on the 14^th November 2000.  These details were forwarded to Michael Dewey and the hill was added to the list on the 19^th November 2000.

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. 

LIDAR image of Meal Fell (NY 282 337)

Therefore, the deletion of this hill from the The 500-Metre Tops of England and Wales list was instigated on the 29^th December 2022 and is due to LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips, with this previously deduced by the DoBIH team, resulting in a 549.4m summit height and a 520.1m col height, with these values giving this hill 29.3m of drop, which is insufficient for it to be classified as a Dewey. 

 

The full details for the hill are: 

Name:  Meal Fell 

OS 1:50,000 map:  89, 90

OS 1:25,000 map:  4

Summit Height:  549.4m (LIDAR) 

Summit Grid Reference:  NY 28299 33762 (LIDAR) 

Col Height:  520.1m (LIDAR) 

Col Grid Reference:  NY 28565 33765 (LIDAR) 

Drop:  29.3m (LIDAR) 

 

Myrddyn Phillips (February 2023)