Mapping Mountains – Significant Height Revisions – 100m Twmpau and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales

Chepstow Hill (ST 355 905)

There has been a Significant Height Revision to a hill that is listed in the 100m Twmpau and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales, with the summit height, bwlch height and their locations, the drop, dominance and status of the hill confirmed by LIDAR analysis conducted by Myrddyn Phillips.

LIDAR image of Chepstow Hill (ST 355 905)

The criteria for the two listings that this height revision applies to are:

100m Twmpau - Welsh hills at or above 100m and below 200m in height with 30m minimum drop, with an accompanying sub list entitled the 100m Sub-Twmpau with the criteria for this sub category being all Welsh hills at or above 100m and below 200m 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.

Y Trechol - The Dominant Hills of Wales - Welsh P30 hills whose prominence  equal or exceed half that of their absolute height.  With the criteria for Lesser Dominant status being those additional Welsh P30 hills whose prominence is between one third and half that of their absolute height.  The list is authored by Myrddyn Phillips with the Introduction to the start of the Mapping Mountains publication of this list appearing on the 3^rd December 2015, and the list is now available in its entirety on Mapping Mountains in Google Doc format.

The name the hill is listed by is Chepstow Hill and it is adjoined to the Gwent Is Coed group of hills which are situated in the south-eastern part of South Wales (Region C, Sub-Region C3), and it is positioned with the Afon Wysg (River Usk) to its north-west, the M4 motorway to its south and the A449 road to its east, and has the city of Casnewydd (Newport) towards the south-west.

When the original 100m height band of Welsh P30 hills were published on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website this hill was listed with a 111m summit height based on the spot height that appears on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map.

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

The details for this hill were re-assessed when the Ordnance Survey Vector Map Local hosted on the Geograph website and which is entitled the Interactive Coverage Map became available online.  This mapping had many spot heights not on other publicly available Ordnance Survey maps and gives a 114m spot height on the summit area of this hill and positioned at ST 356 905.  This 114m spot height also appears on Ordnance Survey data available on the Magic Maps website.

Extract from the Magic Maps website

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. 

                                        

The summit height produced by LIDAR analysis is 116.6m positioned at ST 35547 90567, this is a substantial height revision compared to the original 111m listed summit height, and it comes within the parameters of the Significant Height Revisions used within this page heading, these parameters are:

The term Significant Height Revisions applies to any listed hill whose interpolated summit height and Ordnance Survey or Harvey map summit spot height has a 2m or more discrepancy when compared to the survey result produced by the Trimble GeoXH 6000 or analysis of data produced via LIDAR.  Also included are hills whose summit map data is missing an uppermost ring contour when compared to the data produced by the Trimble or by LIDAR analysis. 

Therefore, this hill’s new listed summit height is 116.6m and this was produced by LIDAR analysis, this is 5.6m higher than its original listed height of 111m that appears as a spot height on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, and 2.6m higher than that of the online Vector Map Local.

ills of Wales, and are reproduced below@

The full details for the hill are:

Group:  Gwent Is Coed

Name:  Chepstow Hill

OS 1:50,000 map:  171

Summit Height (New Height):  116.6m (LIDAR)

Summit Grid Reference:  ST 35547 90567 (LIDAR)

Bwlch Height:  63.2m (LIDAR)

Bwlch Grid Reference:  ST 36979 90843 (LIDAR)

Drop:  53.4m (LIDAR)

Dominance:  45.76% (LIDAR)

Myrddyn Phillips (June 2020)