Reclassifications
to the Nuttalls
UKHillwalking recently published an article on the
reclassifications to the 2,000ft mountains of England and of Wales listed by
John and Anne Nuttall. The original
article and a link to it on the UKHillwalking website appear below.
Going
Nuts for Nuttalls - the 2000ft Peaks of England & Wales
by Myrddyn Phillips 25/Nov/2016
Numbering several hundred summits, the
Nuttalls - the 2000-foot peaks of England and Wales - are a classic tick list.
In this age of accurate mapping you might assume the list was definitive, but
in fact many entries have been added or demoted over the years. The most recent
changes have been made only this month. Myrddyn Phillips, one of the surveyors
responsible for several revisions, takes us through the additions and
deletions.
In 1989 Cicerone Press published the
first of a two volume guide, with the second volume being published the
following year: The Mountains of England and Wales, volume 1 Wales and The
Mountains of England and Wales, volume 2 England. Within their pages
are details to the 2000ft mountains of each country and over the years they
have become prized by many hill walkers, as their contents must have
been a labour of love to produce. The authors are John and Anne Nuttall, a
married couple who live in Congleton in Cheshire and the listing of hills
within these two books are now affectionately known as the Nuttalls.
"These two volumes by John and Anne Nuttall have taken
many walkers on a journey through some of the most beautiful landscape that
Britain has to offer"
Since the publication of these
guidebooks many people have completed an ascent of each mountain, with 275 completers
listed as of October 2016. By doing so each and every person would have visited
all summits in England and Wales at or over 2000ft (609.6m) in height that have
a minimum prominence of 15m. These mountains are spread throughout Wales and
also take in the majority of upland areas in England from the wilderness of the
Cheviot in the north to the rock tors of Dartmoor in the south, with the Welsh
mountains taking in the variety of Snowdonia’s higher summits to the remote and
bleak central hills to the old red sandstone giants of the south. Each and
every mountain can leave memories that refresh the soul and body, and these two
volumes by John and Anne have taken many walkers on a journey through some of
the most beautiful landscape that Britain has to offer.
When the books were first published
Wales was listed with 181 mountains and England with 251 mountains. Since these
early days the influx of independent surveyors and the diligence of map study
has reclassified and promoted a number of hills to mountain status. But what
hills have now entered these lists and who was responsible for their inclusion?
Over a recent two-week period there
have been four alterations to the list, so now seems a fitting time to list all
the reclassified Nuttalls.
Three mountains have just been promoted
to the list and another one deleted, with two of these new inclusions being
adjacent to one another and situated in the western fells of the northern
Pennines, and the third recent addition being a part of the Brecon Beacons, or
Bannau Brycheiniog as the hill range is known in Welsh; the deleted mountain
meanwhile is found in the Howgill Fells.
The overall total now stands at 446, an increase of 14 since
they were first listed in 1989 and 1990.
 |
| Manky conditions on Mynydd Graig Goch |
First of the three new Nuttalls is
Craig Gwaun Taf (SO 005 207), which is situated to the immediate south of Corn
Du, second highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons with its adjacent neighbour
of Pen y Fan being the highest. This new mountain entered the list through the
diligence of John and Anne’s son; Joe, who checked its prospective status
against recently made available LIDAR data. This data is highly accurate but
necessitates great time to pinpoint where the summit and respective col is
situated. Joe’s analysis proved correct as he notified me and asked if I could
survey it with my Trimble GeoXH 6000. The result from the Trimble survey gives
Craig Gwaun Taf 16.1m of drop, which is sufficient to enter the list of
Nuttalls.
The most recent additions to the
Nuttalls list are Tinside Rigg (NY 775 199) and Long Fell (NY 768 198) adjacent
peaks with 19.3m and 16.5m of drop respectively and which are situated in the
Warcop military range where the Military of Defence restricts access to only a
few days per year. Whilst the deleted Nuttall is Bram Rigg Top (SD 668 964)
which is situated in the Howgill Fells to the immediate south of The Calf,
which is the hill ranges highest point. This mountain was deleted from the list
due to a survey with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 resulting in a 14.68m drop value
and which was later confirmed by a line survey, this drop value is insufficient
for Bram Rigg Top’s retention in the Nuttalls list.
The addition of Craig Gwaun Taf,
Tinside Rigg and Long Fell, and the deletion of Bram Rigg Top, are just the latest
in a line that stretches back to 1997 when the first of many surveys were
conducted on prospective new mountains. However, there have also been three
deletions over the years in all, and these are also listed with their
respective details.
There have been a number of
reclassifications to the Nuttalls lists, and these appear below in receding
order under the hill name used by John and Anne:
Long Fell
623.5m at NY 76871 19810
Confirmation of promotion via the
Grough website on 18.11.16, the hill was surveyed on 05.10.16 by Graham Jackson
and Jim Bloomer using a Leica GS15 with John and Anne also present, and by line
survey conducted by John Barnard, Chris Crocker and Simon Edwardes with the
resulting 16.5m of drop being sufficient for qualification as a Nuttall.
English Nuttall total confirmed as 256.
Tinside
Rigg 624.0m at NY 77547 19904
Confirmation of promotion via the
Grough website on 18.11.16, the hill was surveyed on 05.10.16 by Graham Jackson
and Jim Bloomer using a Leica GS15 with John and Anne also present, with the
resulting 19.3m of drop being sufficient for qualification as a Nuttall.
English Nuttall total confirmed as 255.
Bram Rigg
Top 672.7m at SD 668 964
 |
| Bram Rigg Top - recently demoted following a survey |
The first English Nuttall to be deleted
since publication of John and Anne’s list and guidebook in 1990, with
confirmation of the deletion via the Nuttall’s website on 12.11.16. I surveyed
this hill with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 on 10.10.15 and as the result of 14.7m
(14.683m) of drop was insufficient to retain its Nuttall status I forwarded the
result to John and Anne. A line survey was later conducted on the hill on
06.10.16 by John Barnard and Graham Jackson with John and Anne also present.
The result confirmed the Trimble survey with 14.68m of drop. English Nuttall
total confirmed as 254.
Craig
Gwaun Taf 826.4m at SO 00548 20720
 |
| Craig Gwaun Taf emerging out of the mist, the recently confirmed new Nuttall |
Confirmation of promotion via Joe
Nuttall posting on the Yahoo groups RHB forum on 04.11.16, this being the
result of Joe Nuttall relaying the information that LIDAR data gave this hill
15.783m of drop and asking me if I could survey it with the Trimble, the
resulting Trimble GeoXH 6000 survey confirmed that with 16.1m this hill has
sufficient drop to qualify as a Nuttall. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 190.
Calf Top
609.61m at SD 66450 85624
 |
| Calf Top - Britain's newest mountain |
Confirmation of reclassification via
the Nuttall’s website on 06.09.16. This hill had been surveyed by John Barnard,
Graham Jackson and myself using the Leica 530, firstly on the 15.04.10 when a
two hour summit data set was gathered, and secondly on the 20.05.10 when a four
hour summit data set was gathered. Both data sets were subsequently processed
by Ordnance Survey who confirmed that this hill was 609.58m high and therefore
just 2cm under 2,000ft (609.6m) in height. However, six years later the
Ordnance Survey produced their new geoid model; OSGM15, resulting in all known
accurate heights increasing by 2cm – 4cm throughout England and also Wales,
this resulted in Calf Top increasing in known height to all of 6mm over 609.6m
(2,000ft). English Nuttall total confirmed as 255.
Moelwyn
Mawr North Ridge Top 649.7m at SH 66099 45259
 |
| Moelwyn Mawr North Ridge Top - sums up the pitfalls of using 15m of prominence as a qualifying mark |
An interesting example this, as it has
yo-yoed in and out of the list over the years, following survey and re-survey.
Confirmation of promotion via letter
dated 12.08.98, with survey having been conducted by John and Anne Nuttall
during the previous week. I surveyed 166 hills for Welsh Nuttall status and
this hill was the first hill confirmed through these surveys to enter the list
of Nuttalls (it was also the second hill confirmed to lose its Nuttall status,
see above for details). The details from this hill’s survey were passed on to
Dewi, and John and Anne, who all later surveyed it and came to the same
conclusion that the hill just had sufficient drop to be included. It was also
rather ingeniously surveyed on the 25.05.98 by Joe and Tara Nuttall who used an
almost full water bottle to ascertain its drop value.
The second Welsh Nuttall to be deleted
since publication of John and Anne’s list and guidebook in 1989. Confirmation
of deletion via the Nuttall’s website on the 05.08.15, reversing its inclusion
after John Barnard, Graham Jackson and I line surveyed the hill and also
surveyed it with a Leica GS15 and Trimble GeoXH 6000 on 16.06.15, resulting in
the hill having 14.77m of drop - just less than the required 15m.
Thack
Moor 609.65m at NY 61166 46278
 |
| Surveying Thack Moor |
Confirmation of reclassification via
the Nuttall’s website on 03.04.13. This hill had been surveyed by John Barnard,
Graham Jackson and myself using the Leica 530 and Leica GS15, firstly on the
22.08.12 when a two hour summit data set was gathered, and secondly on the
03.03.13 when a four hour summit data set was gathered. Both data sets were
subsequently processed by Ordnance Survey who confirmed that this hill was
609.65m high and therefore over 2,000ft (609.6m) in height. English Nuttall total
confirmed as 254.
Mynydd
Graig Goch 609.75m at SH 49732 48518
Confirmation of promotion to the
Nuttalls list on 19.09.07 at a Press Conference held in the Oakeley Room at
Plas Tan-y-bwlch, Maentwrog. This hill was first proposed as a prospective hill
to survey by Aled Williams on the Nuttall’s message board, and the survey that
resulted in this hill’s reclassification to a Nuttall was done in conjunction
with Leica Geosystems with their representative; James Whitworth being the
surveyor who operated the Leica 1200, Clwb Mynydda Cymru and the Snowdonia
National Park Authority. Present on the survey were John Barnard, Graham
Jackson, Dewi Jones, Harold Morris, Anne Nuttall, John Nuttall, James Whitworth
and myself. Outside of The Munro Society commissioning CMCR Ltd to survey two
hills in Scotland for Munro status this was the first time that Differential
GPS equipment had been used outside of the Ordnance Survey to determine the
accurate height of hills. The resulting reclassification of Mynydd Graig Goch made
headlines on the television, radio and throughout the national press. Welsh
Nuttall total confirmed as 190.
Castell y
Gwynt 972m at SH 65397 58181
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| Castell y Gwynt |
Confirmation of promotion to the
Nuttalls list on 02.09.07. There were two hills outstanding that needed
accurately surveying out of the 166 hills I had surveyed for Nuttall status,
and this hill was the second of them. To my knowledge the hill was first
proposed for Nuttall status by Dewi Jones, and I subsequently surveyed this
hill on a number of occasions and forwarded the details to Dewi, and John and
Anne, with all my surveys giving this hill over 15m of drop. But it wasn’t
until John Barnard, Dewi Jones and I teamed up that this hill was surveyed with
a Leica Disto A8 on the 24.07.07, resulting in the hill having 15.95m of drop.
This hill was later surveyed with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 as having 15.9m of
drop. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 189.
Carnedd y
Filiast N Top 721m at SH 61751 63165
Confirmation of promotion to the
Nuttalls list on 02.09.07. There were two hills outstanding that needed
accurately surveying out of the 166 hills I had surveyed for Nuttall status,
and this hill was one of them. I surveyed this hill on a number of occasions
and forwarded the details to Dewi, and John and Anne, but it wasn’t until John
Barnard, Graham Jackson and I teamed up that this hill was surveyed with an
Automatic Level and Staff on the 26.05.07, resulting in the hill having 16.1m
of drop. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 188.
Cadair
Bronwen NE Top 700m at SJ 08713 35222
The first Welsh Nuttall to be deleted
since publication of John and Anne’s list and guidebook in 1989. Confirmation
of deletion to the Nuttalls list on 02.09.07 with a suitably wet wake held on
behalf of the hill on 19.08.07. This hill was line surveyed by John Barnard and
Graham Jackson on 03.03.07, resulting in the hill having 10.7m of drop. Welsh
Nuttall total confirmed as 187.
Birks
Fell 610m at SD 91878 76369
Confirmation of promotion via the
Nuttall’s wesbsite on 04.10.06 and confirmed on 05.10.06. This hill had been
proposed for inclusion as a Nuttall by several people, most notably John
Barnard and Graham Jackson who on the 03.06.06 used an Automatic Level in
calculating the height of the hill. Subsequently John and Anne Nuttall had the
height of the hill confirmed by Ordnance Survey and then accepted it into their
list of English 2,000ft mountains. English Nuttall total confirmed as 253.
Honister
Crag 634.0m at NY 21247 14152
The first new English Nuttall since
publication of John and Anne’s list and guidebook in 1990. Confirmation of
promotion via the Nuttall’s wesbsite after John and Anne had surveyed the hill
in November 2004. This hill was proposed for inclusion as a Nuttall by Edwin
Gradwell and Andy Moffat, and subsequently surveyed with the Leica RX1250 by
Alan Dawson, resulting in the hill having 21.0m of drop. English Nuttall total
confirmed as 252.
Waun
Garnedd-y-filiast 650m at SH 87404 45247
Confirmation of promotion via letter
dated 21.10.99 after John and Anne had surveyed the hill. I’d surveyed this
hill on numerous occasions and forwarded the results to Dewi, and to John and
Anne. The hill was subsequently line surveyed by Harold Morris, Dewi Jones,
John Williams and myself on 02.07.99 resulting in a 15.13m drop value. Welsh
Nuttall total confirmed as 188.
Waun
Lefrith 676.2m at SN 79820 21451
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| Waun Lefrith, one of the early additions to the list of Nuttalls |
Confirmation of promotion via letter
dated 16.09.99, with survey having been conducted by John and Anne Nuttall on
14.09.99. This was the first hill I ever surveyed and repeated the process on a
number of occasions and forwarded the results to John and Anne. This hill was
subsequently surveyed with the Trimble GeoXH 6000 by me, resulting in the hill
having a 15.9m drop. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 187.
Waun
Camddwr 621.7m at SH 84832 20712
Confirmation of promotion via letter
dated 16.09.99, with survey having been conducted by John and Anne Nuttall on
10.09.99. I’d surveyed this hill on a number of occasions and forwarded the
results to John and Anne, with all my surveys giving this hill over 15m of
drop. This hill was subsequently line surveyed and surveyed with a Leica GS15
and Trimble GeoXH 6000 by John Barnard, Graham Jackson and myself, resulting in
the hill having a 15.5m drop. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 186.
Moelwyn
Mawr North Ridge Top (as above)
Summit demoted. Welsh Nuttall total
confirmed as 185
Foel
Meirch c 800m at SH 65878 63744
Confirmation of promotion via letter to
Dewi Jones dated 16.02.98, with survey having been conducted by John and Anne
Nuttall on 15.02.98. Having met Dewi in the car park at Bwlch y Groes I was
inspired to take up surveying after he told me that ‘John and Anne had missed
one on the northern ridge of Cnicht.’ I subsequently had a staff manufactured
and took up the challenge to find a new Nuttall, and sent Dewi details of this
hill which he then surveyed, passing the details on to John and Anne via
letter. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 184.
Craiglwyn
623m at SH 73056 60891
Confirmation of promotion via letter to
Dewi Jones in late 1997, with Dewi having proposed this hill as a prospective
new Nuttall via letter to John and Anne Nuttall who subsequently surveyed it.
Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 183.
Cnicht
North Top 688m at SH 64803 46870
Confirmation of promotion via article
in the Rambling Today magazine, dated spring 1997, after
Dewi Jones surveyed the hill with a rudimentary levelling staff, with the
resulting qualifying drop value later confirmed by a line survey conducted by
Harold Morris and Tudur Owain. Welsh Nuttall total confirmed as 182.
About the Nuttall's Guidebooks
£12.99
The Mountains of England and Wales: Vol 1 Wales
Published by Cicerone Press, 3rd edition 2014
The Nuttalls are hills over 2000ft high in England and
Wales. The 190 Nuttalls in Wales are split into: Carneddau, Glyders, Snowdon,
Moel Hebog, Moelwyns, Arenigs, Berwyns, Arans, Rhinogs, Cadair Idris, central
Wales, Black Mountains, Brecon Beacons. Definitive lists, detailed route
descriptions, maps and drawings of Wales' highest peaks.
The Mountains of England and Wales: Vol 2 England
by John & Anne Nuttall
Published by Cicerone Press, 3rd
edition 2008
A walking guide to climbing the 253
'Nuttall' mountain summits in England, in a series of 58 walks. These form part
of the total of 443 mountain summits in England and Wales which reach the
height of 2000ft or more. Routes and summits in the Lake District, Cheviots,
North Pennines, Yorkshire Dales, Peak District and Dartmoor.
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