Written on 17/01/18 by Paul Oldham

Hills Database Updated

We've just imported the latest version of the Database of British and Irish hills which adds another four British hills to our database. We were previously on version 15.4.2 and we're now on 16 which was released on 23rd December 2017.

With this import we have also, for the first time, 1099 Irish hills in the database. This complements the extension of our mapping to the whole of the British Isles.

Hindscarth and Robinson from Catbells
Jessie taking a break having summitted Cat Bells

There are few significant changes to hill lists, but the big changes are the restructuring of the British 500m hills and the grammatical change in Scottish hill names.

British 500m hills

Historically a hill over 500 metres (1640 feet) in altitude, but below 2000 feet (609.6 metres), with a relative height of at least 30 metres (98 feet) was classified as a Dewey in England or Wales, a Donald Dewey in the Scottish Lowlands, a Highland Five in the Scottish Highlands, or a Myrddyn Dewey in Ireland.

In 2014 a new list was proposed which would rationalise this odd mix of metric and imperial units by making the top limit below 600 metres but still being over 500 metres with a relative height of at least 30 metres and so any hill in Scotland, Wales, or England in this range is now also classified as a Dodd.

A new subDodd category has been created for hills with 20-29m drop in the same height range. The subDewey, subDonald Dewey and subHighland Five categories have been withdrawn.

Grammatical Change

They have added a trailing space after a' in Scots Gaelic hill names such as A' Chioch. There is a clear trend towards inserting the grammatically correct space in hill publications, including the SMC's, which also aligns with OS maps and also with our WayMaps mapping.

Other Changes

They have also been very busy with the positions of tops and a lot have moved by small distances so if you want to see a list of all the changes, to names (excluding the grammatical change discussed above), heights, descriptions of summit feature, locations, and classifications (excluding the Dodds) it can be found here.

It includes 212 new tops including one new top, The Howe, a Tump in Cumbria, although it lies outside the Lake District on the coast at Workington.

 

As usual your bagging lists will have been automatically updated as appropriate.

Tagged: maps


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