Mapping Mountains – Significant Name Changes – Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales

 

Crug Melyn (SN 502 285) 

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales 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 derived from detail on contemporary maps produced from Ordnance Survey data. 

The criteria for the two listings that this name change 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

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. 

Y Trechol - The Dominant Hills of Wales by Myrddyn Phillips

The hill is adjoined to the Mynydd Pencarreg group of hills, which are situated in the south-western part of South Wales (Region B, Sub-Region B1), and it is positioned with a minor road to its north and south-west and the B4310 road to its east, and has the small community of Brechfa towards the north-east.

The hill appeared in the original Welsh 300m P30 list on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website, under the transposed name of Pen-crug-melyn, which is a prominent name that appears near the summit of this hill on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map.

Pen-crug-melyn

326m

SN503285

146

186

Marilyn. Clem/Yeaman. Trig pillar.

 

During my early hill listing I paid little regard to name placement on the map, or the meaning of names and to what feature the name was appropriately applied to.  Therefore, I prioritised names for listing purposes that I now understand are either inappropriate or where another name is viewed as being more appropriate. 

This is not a practice that I now advocate as with time and inclination place-name data can be improved either by asking local people or by examining historic documents, through this form of research an appropriate name for the hill can usually be found. 

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, and it is the series of Six-Inch maps that were consulted for name placement in relation to this hill. 

Extract from the Ordnance Surveys series of Six-Inch maps

The Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps formed the base map Ordnance Survey used for many decades leading to the production of the 1:10,000 Series of maps, both have now been superseded by the digitised Master Map.  The series of Six-Inch maps are excellent for name placement and especially so compared to the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map, and it is the series of Six-Inch maps that give the name of Crug Melyn in relation to this hill with that of Pen-crug-melyn placed adjacent to a farm which is positioned just under the summit of this hill.

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales and Y Trechol – The Dominant Hills of Wales is Crug Melyn and this was derived from the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map with its placement substantiated from the Ordnance Survey series of Six-Inch maps. 

 

The full details for the hill are: 

Group:  Mynydd Pencarreg 

Name:  Crug Melyn 

Previously Listed Name:  Pen-crug-melyn 

OS 1:50,000 map:  146 

Summit Height:  326m (spot height) 

Summit Grid Reference:  SN 50274 28508 (hand-held GPS via DoBIH) 

Bwlch Height:  c 142m (interpolation) 

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SN 48763 29385 (interpolation) 

Drop:  c 184m (spot height summit and interpolated bwlch) 

Dominance:  56.44% (spot height summit and interpolated bwlch) 

 

Myrddyn Phillips (June 2022)