Mapping Mountains – Hill Reclassifications – 500m Twmpau

Esgair Llyn Du (SN 769 620) – 500m Sub-Twmpau deletion

There has been a deletion to the listing of the 500m Twmpau, with the summit height, bwlch height and their locations, the drop and status of the hill derived from LIDAR analysis conducted by Aled Williams. 

Esgair Llyn Du (SN 769 620)

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

500m Twmpau - Welsh hills at or above 500m and below 600m in height with 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub list entitled the 500m Sub-Twmpau with the criteria for this sub category being all Welsh hills at or above 500m and below 600m in height with 20m or more and below 30m of drop, with the word Twmpau being an acronym standing for thirty welsh metre prominences and upward.  The list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips and is available to download in Google Doc format from Mapping Mountains. 

The 500m Twmpau by Myrddyn Phillips

The name the hill is listed by is Esgair Llyn Du and it is adjoined to the Esgair Wen group of hills, which are situated in the central part of South Wales (Region B, Sub-Region B1), and it is positioned with a minor road to its north-west and south, and has the small community of Pontrhydfendigaid towards the north-west and the town of Tregaron towards the west south-west. 

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

After the list that later became known as the 500m Twmpau was first compiled, this hill was included in the accompanying sub list with 20m of drop, based on the 534m summit spot height positioned at SN 767 617 and the 514m bwlch spot heights that appeared on the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website and which was entitled the Interactive Coverage Map, with this mapping giving two positions of equal height for the bwlch. 

Extract from the interactive mapping hosted on the WalkLakes website

The Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website gave the higher spot height to the middle of three larger 530m map contour rings, with the southerly and middle ring contours subsequently surveyed with the Trimble GeoXH 6000.  However, the interactive mapping hosted on the WalkLakes website indicates that the most northerly of these is the higher. 

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 set-up position at the southerly of the three tops

The Trimble GeoXH 6000 set-up position at the middle of the three tops

At the northerly of the three tops and the summit of Esgair Llyn Du

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 Esgair Llyn Du (SN 769 620)

Therefore, the deletion of this hill from 500m Sub-Twmpau status is due to LIDAR analysis, resulting in a 532.8m summit height and a 513.8m bwlch height, with these values giving this hill 19.0m of drop, which is insufficient for it to be classified as a 500m Sub-Twmpau.

 

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Esgair Wen

Name:  Esgair Llyn Du

OS 1:50,000 map:  146, 147

Summit Height:  532.8m (LIDAR) 

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 76930 62044 (LIDAR) 

Bwlch Height:  513.8m (LIDAR) 

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 76942 61196 (LIDAR) 

Drop:  19.0m (LIDAR)

 

Myrddyn Phillips (November 2023)