25.03.17
Reilth Top (SO 284 881), Colebatch Hill (SO 292 874) and Bryn Hill (SO
295 862)
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| Colebatch Hill (SO 292 874) |
The Shropshire hills can
give a tranquil experience, especially so under seemingly never ending blue sky
with distant views and hour after hour of solitude. Today I wanted to test my wonky right knee
with something more than just one small hill, so I opted to join three small
hills together and try and time my completion for a 6.00pm – 7.00pm arrival at
Clun YH to join the evening’s festivities at the annual Triggers meet.
I parked beside a no
parking sign on a large patch of muddied road leaving sufficient access in all directions
to all gate and drive entrances, and headed up a delightful green track toward
the summit of my first hill of the day; Reilth Top. Heading up the track the sun cascaded out of
a deep blue sky and the slight chilled late March morning added to the freshness
of early spring warmth.
The summit of Reilth Top
is in a closely cropped grassed field with a covered reservoir in its corner,
as I gathered the first of what proved to be three data sets from the area of
this hill’s summit two walker’s approached, I waved and heading my way were
Richard and Denise Mclellan, I’d corresponded with Richard via email in the
past and was a friend of Denise’s on Facebook, but this was the first time that
I had met them. We chatted for ten to
fifteen minutes as the sun shone and the Trimble gathered the first of its three
data sets. They had walked from Clun and
were heading down for lunch followed by the walk back to the Youth Hostel, and
had come over the hills that I planned on visiting later in the day, so I
checked on the route ahead. As they
waved their good buys I set the Trimble up to gather its third data set and
once complete, closed it off, packed it away and headed down to the col
connecting Reilth Top with Colebatch Hill.
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| Gathering the first data set on the summit area of Reilth Top |
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| Denise and Richard Mclellan |
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| Gathering data at the summit of Reilth Top |
I’d come prepared with a
number of 10 figure grid references for each summit and col and had been told
by Richard that the connecting col looked as if it was positioned in a paddock which
had horses in it, this wasn’t ideal.
However, when I arrived near the col I thought the critical point to lay
next to the paddock and wondered if I could sneak in to land behind a large
barn and gather five minutes of data without being disturbed, so I crept
through a gate and wandered around a bit looking at the grid reference on the
Trimble’s screen and at the same time trying to assess the lay of land which
looked relatively flat, it was then that I spotted a figure heading toward me,
he didn’t really ask me what I was doing, but his mannerisms did, so I
explained anyway. He thought I’d better
explain to the person at the adjacent Vron Farm, so off we both marched, a few
minutes later and the woman at the farm had given me permission to take data from
wherever I wanted, it so happened that the point I decided to gather data from
was in the adjacent land between the paddock and the farm’s and which was owned
by the person who had first approached me.
I set the Trimble up and stood back once it was activated, a few minutes
later and the same person came down toward me again looking inquisitively at
what I was doing but asking few if any questions, I mesmerized him with Trimble
figures and smiled a lot which seemed to help, and then packed the equipment
away once it had gathered five minutes of data, thanked him for his time and
walked toward the connecting footpath toward Colebatch Hill.
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| Gathering data at the col area of Reilth Top |
I initially followed the
public footpath that contours round the northern part of Colebatch Hill, before
leaving it to follow a hedge line direct up the hill toward the manicured green
field where the summit is situated. I
spent a few minutes assessing the lay of land from different directions before choosing
the spot for Trimble placement.
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| Gathering data at the summit area of Colebatch Hill |
Below to the south lay
my next objective, the connecting col between Colebatch Hill and Bryn Hill,
however this was positioned in a field between two houses so I thought the
wisest approach would be to ask permission to visit, leaving the summit behind
I wandered down the southerly slopes and skirted woodland on its east before
finding a metalled gate leading to a path through the front of what looked like
a small holding, this led onto the gravelled track heading down from the house to
the minor road in the valley beyond, toward the end of the track were two
people busy at work erecting large poles in the ground. I stopped and chatted and explained what I
hoped to do and asked if I could head in to the adjacent fields. Permission was duly granted and I was
directed through the grounds of the next house which was a holiday home which
wasn’t occupied this weekend, this gave me peace of mind and I contentedly made
my way up the field and through the gate to the property and then down the
access track toward the field and the connecting col.
This col proved a quiet
affair with just an occasional vehicle chugging its way over the lane above me
whilst the sheep grazed and the Trimble slowly ebbed down to its 0.1m accuracy
level before data should be logged, once this was attained I pressed ‘Log’ and
stood back for the allotted five minutes of data to be collected.
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| Gathering data at the critical col of Bryn Hill |
Heading up the field to
a gate I followed a forestry track in to Blakeridge Wood which swamps the
eastern side of Bryn Hill. I followed this
track for quite some time and decided to head back to the lane when it started
to go downhill and lead away from the summit.
By doubling back it gave me over a mile of unnecessary walking which
isn’t much in the grand scheme of things but I didn’t want to overtax my right
knee, so this proved an unwelcome addition to the days exertions, but being on
the forestry track gave me views northward toward the Stiperstones, which is
one of the undoubted highlights of the Shropshire hills.
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| Distant view of the Stiperstones |
Getting back on to the
lane was a relief but I now had to descend over 40m in height as I followed the
lane down through the quiet surrounds of Cefn Einion. I then branched left on the continuation of
the lane to a track which gave me access to a gate and the steepening western
slopes of Bryn Hill. Field after field
and gate after gate led me up to the summit which is situated in the field
adjacent to the forestry that I’d backtracked out of an hour or so ago.
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| House front in Cefn Einion |
I took two data sets
from the summit area of Bryn Hill, one on ground beside a small covered
reservoir and one where I judged the high point to be in the field leading
toward the forest. Once data were stored
I packed the Trimble away and headed down the hill, only stopping to take
photos of a delicate cloudscape toward the south as pink tinged high cloud
wisped through the sky.
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| Gathering data at the summit of Bryn Hill |
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| Delicate cloudscape from Bryn Hill |
I arrived back at my car
after a mile or so of walking on the country lane, by now the sun had sank
behind the hills to my south-west, and I changed in to clean clothes as the
first chill of evening crept down on the land.
It was only a short drive to Clun and its Youth Hostel for an excellent
evening of good company, good conversation, excellent food at a very reasonable
price (£3.50 for main course and three puddings) and a talk by a self-employed
surveyor who used to work for the Ordnance Survey, a good end to an excellent day.
Postscript:
Since the survey of these hills full LIDAR coverage is now
available. The LIDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) technique
produced highly accurate height and positional data that is now freely
available for England and Wales. Consequently the numerical details
for these hills have been analysed using this technique, resulting in the LIDAR
height and position for some of these hills being prioritised over that
produced by the Trimble GeoXH 6000.
Survey Result:
Reilth Top
Summit Height: 404.6m (converted to OSGM15, Trimble GeoXH 6000)
Col Height: 375.4m (LIDAR)
Col Grid Reference: SO 28878 87840 (LIDAR)
Dominance: 7.22% (Trimble GeoXH 6000 summit and LIDAR col)
Colebatch Hill
Summit Height: 415.9m (LIDAR)
Summit Grid Reference: SO 29215 87470 (LIDAR)
Col Height: 318.6m (LIDAR)
Col Grid Reference: SO 28961 88784 (LIDAR)
Drop: 97.2m (LIDAR)
Dominance: 23.38% (LIDAR)
Bryn Hill
Summit Height: 407.5m (converted to OSGM15)
Col Height: 298.9m (converted to OSGM15)
Col Grid Reference: SO 29299 86584
Drop: 108.6m
Dominance: 26.64%
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