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

 

Matilda (SH 595 603) – 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 Matilda (SH 595 603)

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 Matilda, and it is adjoined to the Glyder Fawr group of hills, which are situated in the north-western part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A1), and it is positioned with the A4086 road to its south-west, and has the village of Llanberis towards the west south-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 accompanying Hills to be surveyed sub list, as with no significant contours of note on the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger and 1:25,000 Explorer map it was difficult to know whether any hill of note existed. 

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

Since the original publication of the Welsh P30 lists on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website 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 that was 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 Magic Maps and WalkLakes websites.

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.  Using this map the details for the hill were subsequently documented as an estimated c 17m of drop, based on an estimated c 355m summit height and an estimated c 338m bwlch height, with both heights based on interpolation of 5m contouring. 

Extract from the 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 Sub-Trichant status is due to LIDAR analysis, resulting in a 357.0m summit height and a 336.8m 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:  Glyder Fawr 

Name:  Matilda 

OS 1:50,000 map:  115

Summit Height:  357.0m (LIDAR)                                                           

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 59592 60356 (LIDAR) 

Bwlch Height:  336.8m (LIDAR) 

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 59620 60349 (LIDAR) 

Drop:  20.1m (LIDAR) 

 

Myrddyn Phillips (June 2025)