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

 

Y Byrwydd (SJ 137 051 & SJ 135 050) 

There has been a Significant Name Change to a hill that is listed in the 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 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

The hill is adjoined to the Carnedd Wen group of hills, which are situated in the southern part of North Wales (Region A, Sub-Region A3), and it is positioned with the B4385 road to its north and a minor road to its south, and has the small town of Llanfair Caereinion towards the west north-west.

The hill appeared in the original 300m height band of Welsh P30 hills published on Geoff Crowder’s v-g.me website, under the transposed name of Ty-top, which is a prominent name that appears close to the summit of this hill on the contemporary Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map.

Ty-top

370c

SJ135051

125/136

215

Four points of same height

 

During my early hill listing I thought it appropriate to either invent a name for a hill, or use a name that appeared near to the summit of the hill on Ordnance Survey maps of the day.  My preference was to use farm names and put Pen, Bryn or Moel in front of them or as in this instance transpose the name of a farm/old house and presume it that of the hill.  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.  One of the historic maps now available online is the Ordnance Survey One-Inch ‘Old Series’ map, and it is this map that forms the basis for the change in the listed name of this hill. 

Extract from the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger map

The One-Inch ‘Old Series’ map was the first map that Ordnance Survey produced, and their publication culminated from the whole of Britain being surveyed between 1791 and 1874 and the detail gathered therein produced at a scale of one inch to the mile and published in sheet format between 1805 and 1874.  The One-Inch ‘Old Series’ maps for the whole of Wales are now available online; they are also available in map format as enlarged and re-projected versions to match the scale and dimensions of the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 Landranger series and are published by Cassini.  This series of maps form another important part in the study of Welsh upland place-names and bridge the timeframe leading up to the production of the Ordnance Survey base map of the Six-Inch series, and importantly for this hill and its listed name, it is this map that places the name of Y Byrwydd across the summit area of this hill. 

Extract from the Ordnance Survey One-Inch 'Old Series' map

Therefore, the name this hill is now listed by in the Y Trichant – The 300m Hills of Wales is Y Byrwydd, and this was derived from the Ordnance Survey One-Inch ‘Old Series’ map available via the website hosting The Welsh Tithe Maps. 

 

The full details for the hill are: 

Group:  Carnedd Wen 

Name:  Y Byrwydd 

Previously Listed Name:  Ty-top 

OS 1:50,000 map:  125, 136

Summit Height:  368m (spot height)                                                           

Summit Grid Reference:  SJ 13703 05133 & SJ 13514 05065 (spot height) 

Bwlch Height:  c 343m (interpolation) 

Bwlch Grid Reference:  SJ 14154 04674 (interpolation) 

Drop:  c 25m (spot height summit and interpolated bwlch) 

 

Myrddyn Phillips (November 2022)