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

Mynydd y Gadfa (SH 993 151) – Sub-Trichant addition

There has been confirmation of 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 detail on contemporary maps produced from Ordnance Survey data. 

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 Mynydd y Gadfa, and it is adjoined to the Esgeiriau Gwynion group of hills, which are situated in the southern part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A3), and it is positioned with the A458 road to its south and the B4395 road to its east, and has the village of Llangadfan towards the south south-east.

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 Hills to be surveyed sub list, as it was considered not to meet the criteria then used for this sub category.

After the sub list was standardised, and interpolated heights and drop values also included the details for this hill were re-evaluated and it was listed with an estimated c 23m of drop, based on an estimated c 374m summit height and an estimated c 351m bwlch height, with both heights based on interpolation of 10m contouring that appear on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map. 

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.

One of the mapping resources now available online is the WalkLakes website which hosts an interactive map originated from the Ordnance Survey Open Data programme.  This map has many spot heights not on other publicly available maps and a 373m spot height is given on the summit area of this hill. 

Extract from the WalkLakes website

Therefore, the confirmation of the addition of this hill to Sub-Trichant status is due to detail on contemporary maps produced from Ordnance Survey data, resulting in a 373m summit height and an estimated c 351m bwlch height, with these values giving this hill an estimated c 22m of drop, which is sufficient for it to be classified as a Sub-Trichant. 

 

The full details for the hill are: 

Group:  Esgeiriau Gwynion 

Name:  Mynydd y Gadfa 

OS 1:50,000 map:  125

Summit Height:  373m (spot height)                                                           

Summit Grid Reference:  SH 99336 15127 (spot height) 

Bwlch Height:  c 351m (interpolation) 

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SH 98424 15160 (interpolation) 

Drop:  c 22m (spot height summit and interpolated bwlch) 

 

Myrddyn Phillips (June 2022)