|
BB2137
: The Kings of Lancashire
Wednesday
10th November 2021
It
was time to settle the argument. Is
it Green Hill ? Or should it be Gragareth?
Which should really have the title?
I
refer of course to the question raised last
week by David
W
after I innocently wrote that once The Old
Man Of Coniston had shuffled off to Cumbria,
the highest point of Lancashire was Green
Hill. Well that is what Wiki said
so it must be true.
|
Right?
Maybe.
Wiki is only as good as the information
fed into it.
David pointed me in the
direction of a survey conducted in 2014
by Alan
Dawson,
considered by many to be Britain's pre-eminent
mountain surveyor.
His conclusion,
published in The
Relative Hills of Britain, was that:
|
|
Gragareth,
628m, is the new county top of Lancashire,
as Green Hill
is only 627.5 m.
The
OS map seems to agree. Although the
trig point is shown as being at 627 m (2,054
feet), mapping software suggests that it
is not quite at the high point of Gragareth,
which at 2,057 is a touch higher than Green
Hill.
A
close call but a win is a win.
Would
we agree? It was time to find out.
Armed with various gps devices, we
set off to draw our own conclusion.
It
might not have been the best day to attempt
a solution. It has been a rather damp period
lately and the area is prone to boggyness.
Indeed, John remarked that he had
been up Great Coum recently where it was
so bad he sank up to his knee at one point.
The
clag was down when we parked at Leck Fell
House, the lonely farm at the end of the
long, long road. Fortunately it started
to lift as we began our steep climb.
The
Three Ladies and then the Three Men came
into view.
.jpg)
We said hello to the latter
and continued on our way to the trig point.
We noted GPS reading and then I searched
around for the actual high point. Unfortunately
it is a rather tufty, flattish area with
bogs. Concentrating too hard on the
gps, I managed to trip and fall into one!
I decided it wasn't worth pursuing
it any more. I had found what I thought
to be the actual top.
We
squelched along the Lancashire Way ridge.
Ingleborough was emerging from its
shroud.
.jpg)
Once
we reached
Green Hill we took more readings. The
results will be revealed later.
A
little further on, where three walls meet
at a modest boulder, so do three counties.:
Lancashire, Yorkshire and Westmorland (or
whatever they are now called). We
sheltered behind one of the walls (still
in Lancashire) for lunch.
The
plan now was to follow the wall round to
Great Coum then on to the Crag Hill trig
point. We had glimpses of the Howgills.....
.jpg)
.....
and Barbondale.
.jpg)
The long descent took us almost
to the Bullpot caving centre before finding
a reasonably well marked path across the
fell and down to a bridge that crossed Ease
Gill.
.jpg)
It's not a great stream, even
after all the rain, but it must have been
in antiquity as it ha carved out remarkable
shapes in the rocks.
.jpg)
|
On the south
side of the bridge the water disappears.
A cave reveals what is happening.
The gill turns into a waterfall then
disappears into a hole going Lord know how
deep.
We
continued down what was once the river bed,
passing several pothole entrances, one boarded
up and padlocked, another boasting a rope
for folk to clamber down.
We thought
about exploring the cave but mindful of
what had happened very recently to a man
in the Mendips
we thought better of it.
Well, actually,
it only took a nanosecond and we would have
reached the same decision anyway.
After
all,
it would soon start to get dark.
|
.jpg)
|
It
was a long trudge back to the car. A
mile of strenuous climbing through heather
and bog. It was quite a relief to
reach the car and head down to the Brewery
in Kirkby Lonsdale for the results.
Before
making the announcement, I should make it
clear that none of our six devices are as
sophisticated as Alan Dawson's. Nevertheless
we have a winner.
The
score is:
Green
Hill 2 - Gragareth 4
The
Three Men Of Gragareth are now officially
The Kings of Lancashire.
Don,
Wednesday 10th November 2021
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
