The Britfours –
pushing the metric boundary downward
Britain has a great and varied upland landscape and
this is complimented by the multitude of lists categorising the hills that make
up these beautiful islands.
The categorisation of hills can be a fascinating
subject to study as it has developed from the use of minimum height in the
early listings to prominence based lists that have evolved in to relative
height and all manner of weird and wonderful criterion in between.
The early lists were based on imperial measurement,
but since Ordnance Survey maps adopted metric measurement in the late
1970s/early 1980s there are now few listings that succumb to the temptation of
feet and inches. Hill lists and their
criteria seem to fit very nicely with metric measurement, whereas feet and
inches and the unit 12 seem a little messy by comparison, with counting in tens
for height measurement being so much easier that those cumbersome twelves.
Once metric measurement appeared on Ordnance Survey
maps hill list compilers scrutinised these new maps checking heights and
inventing all manner of new lists. In
the main these took two forms, one of which succumbed to the temptation of
metricising imperial measurement and adopting 30m as a drop value which is
based on the nearest whole numbered equivalent of 100ft, the same by the way
applies to those lovely P15s as this is the nearest whole numbered metric
equivalent of 50ft. However, other
adventurous souls became radicalised and went purely metric and concentrated on
50m and 100m for drop, forever abandoning the old ways and forging a furrow
that has partly ignited hope and enthusiasm amongst the metric loving
masses.
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| Carreg y Saeth (452m at SH 643 302) a Pedwar and one of the Britfours situated in Wales |
But, if there was any form of a battle (and if
there was one it passed us by!) the 30m drop value easily won as it is now
standard in many listings of British hills.
These include the Simms, Deweys, Highland Fives, Donald Deweys, Y
Pedwarau, The Fours and the Tumps, with all the former being just a sub-set of the
latter.
With P30s established in the mind set of many a
hill bagger the next step was to look at the minimum height criterion, these
two prongs of criteria; minimum height and minimum drop refuse to go away,
probably because they are easily understood and they also work very well. Although they are no longer revolutionary, having
been established in 1891 and 1925 respectively, their use over many years has
been firmly implanted in the minds of hill baggers.
With the Tumps having established the P30s of
Britain it seemed a natural progression for these hills to be split in to their
metric component height bands and Alan Dawson led the way when he grouped his
listings of Murdos, Corbett Tops, Grahams, Graham Tops and Hewitts into the
Simms and lowered the height threshold to 600m.
However, as list compilers have proven over the
last 140 odd years, once one step has been applied the next is never far behind
and this next step was taken by Jim Bloomer and Alan Dawson collating all
British hills at and above 500m and below 600m in height that have 30m minimum
drop within a composite list christened ‘The Dodds’. The concept of this list was first mentioned
in May 2010, and the DoBIH have recently classified all qualifying hills under the
Dodds banner. The component parts of the
Dodds have existed for a number of years, these are; the Highland Fives, Donald
Deweys and Deweys, lists which are well known within the hill bagging community.
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| The Wrekin (406.9m at SJ 628 081) and Caer Caradoc Hill (459.5m at SO 477 953) two of the Britfours situated in England |
It seems that many hill lists are thrown to the
ravages of time, and it is this time element coupled with an enthusiastic fan
base that eventually establishes them, as although hill list compilers can be
revolutionary with the likes of Sir Hugh Munro, John Rooke Corbett, Carr and
Lister, William McKnight Docharty, Terry Marsh, Eric Yeaman, Alan Dawson, John
Kirk and Alun Peter Fisher just a few names to throw in the proverbial mix,
these same hill list compilers are prone to be ahead of the bagging public,
with their chosen qualification and listings sometimes taking a number of years
before becoming established.
However, with the Simms becoming ever more popular
and the concept of the Dodds now known, the question should be asked whether
the height band of 500m is the lower extremity for a fledgling Relative Hills
Society to ground to a halt at. Perhaps
some in the hill bagging community may think so, but with the P30s of Britain
now listed it seems only natural to split these up in 100m height bands for the
whole of Britain and list below the 500m minimum height of the Dodds, after all
what can be thought of as upland landscape does not stop at this 500m height
band, it continues down to at least 400m and probably beyond. However, the authors of this article have a
certain affinity with this 400m height band and the British Fours comprise
upland that many would recognise as being good quality mountain, moor and
heath.
When Cicerone published The Relative Hills of
Britain one of the first things that struck the buying public was how the
country suddenly opened up when using a relative height of 150m, there were now
hills to visit in most areas of Britain for those inclined to do so. This is also true of most listings when a
minimum height threshold is reduced as by doing so there suddenly appears a
multitude of half-forgotten hill ranges where none seemed to exist before. The British Fours are no different.
When a combined listing of the British 400m P30
hills was first suggested we had a discussion on what name to use and quickly
decided that a shortened title of Brit4s would suit the list, this name was
then provisionally used and later transformed to Britfours; this being the
recommendation of Alan Dawson. As with
the Dodds, the Britfours is a combination of other lists, these are; the
Scottish 400m P30 hills listed in the Tumps, the Y Pedwarau and The Fours.
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| View from the summit of Ben Tianavaig (413m at NG 511 409) one of the Britfours situated in Scotland |
To our knowledge it was Clem Clements who first
listed the Scottish 400m P30s and it is these data that form the equivalent
hills in the Tumps, with the 400m Hills of Wales and the 400m Hills of England
being first published on the RHB file database with their listings compiled by
Myrddyn Phillips.
All of these component parts to the Britfours have
moved on since these lists first materialised around 15 years ago, as Clem’s
data is now augmented in to the Tumps which Mark Jackson supervises and the
Welsh and English 400m hills have been re-named the Y Pedwarau and The Fours
and are now co-authored by Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams.
Hill lists can be compared to a good wine and an
oft referred to cliché, as they can mature over time, as with the onset of
online mapping, LIDAR data and independent surveyors, numerical data within
hill lists have never had it so good, and the Britfours have benefited greatly
from this.
With most hill lists, time will tell whether their
concept is one that will be taken on by the wider hill bagging community, but
as most hill lists are rather slow burners even amongst an avid community of
rabid baggers, the Britfours and their concept is one to conjure with.
For the time
being we are considering the Britfours as a stand-alone list without a sub
category of P20 hills, although these sub hills have been listed for the Y
Pedwarau and The Fours, they have not been listed for their Scottish
equivalent. If the Britfours gain
favour, and if they are ever combined with their Irish cousins we consider that
the BIFours would be an appropriate name, with this shortened to the BIFs.
If the concept of the Britfours is taken on by the
Relative Hills Society it pushes those 100m height bands down another notch,
with the tantalising prospect of this continuing beyond the 400m height band,
it also enforces the nature of metric listings and their component parts.
Myrddyn Phillips and Aled Williams (March 2018)
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