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

Eastgate Quarry (NY 945 371) – 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 derived from LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips. 

LIDAR image of Eastgate Quarry (NY 945 371)

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 Eastgate Quarry and it is adjoined to the Burnhope Seat group of hills (Region 35, Section 35A: The Northern Pennines), and it is positioned with the A689 road to its north, and has the town of Stanhope towards the east north-east.

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 Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map

Since the original publication of this list there have been a number of 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 were digitally updated such as the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website and which was entitled the Interactive Coverage Map, whilst others are current and digitally updated such as the interactive mapping on the WalkLakes and DataMapWales websites.

One of the mapping resources now available online is the WalkLakes website which hosts an interactive map originated from the Ordnance Survey Open Data programme.  This map has many spot heights not on other publicly available maps and although no spot heights are given for this hill, its contours show the hill exists. 

Extract from the interactive mapping on the WalkLakes website

Another resource now available online is the interactive mapping hosted on the Welsh Government website and entitled the DataMapWales.  This mapping has 5m contours and its detail matches that produced from the OS Terrain 5 product, which compliments much of that produced from LIDAR.  It is this mapping that has a 408m summit height and col contouring between 385m – 390m. 

Extract from the interactive DataMapWales

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 407.5m summit height and a 384.9m col height, with these values giving this hill 22.6m 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:  Eastgate Quarry

OS 1:50,000 map:  91, 92

Summit Height:  407.5m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  NY 94599 37106 (LIDAR)

Col Height:  384.9m (LIDAR)

Col Grid Reference:  NY 94622 36938 (LIDAR)

Drop:  22.6m (LIDAR)

 

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 (February 2023)