The focus of the 82 routes described here is the so-called historic or traditional counties. These counties hark back to a pre-1974 era when boundaries and names had remained unaltered for more than a century: wonderfully evocative titles such as Westmorland, Cumberland and Brecknockshire. They have shaped the UK’s cultural and geographical identity, and while their boundaries may not be marked on modern maps, they were never formally abolished and so live on.
Perhaps the historic county tops are the country’s finest hill list? Here is the case. They feature in all other ‘bagging’ lists, with Munros, Corbetts, Donalds, Grahams, the Welsh 3000ers, numerous Marilyns and island high points prominent among their ranks. Visit all the county tops and the adventurer will have travelled the length and breadth of the UK, from Cornwall to Shetland, Norfolk to Fermanagh.
They rise in some of the nation’s most splendid landscape, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks, among them Dartmoor, the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District, the mountains of Mourne and the North Downs. The list also necessarily includes the highest points of the four countries of the UK – Ben Nevis (Scotland), Scafell Pike (England), Slieve Donard (Northern Ireland) and Snowdon (Wales).
Morven, the highest point in Caithness (Route 75)
Leith Hill Tower (Route 6)
The pursuit of the county tops takes the walker into deep glens and valleys, across rolling moorland, past plunging waterfalls and silent lochs, to the roof of soaring summits, along some of the UK’s famous long-distance footpaths, across knife-edge arêtes, through picturesque villages and above startling coastline, not to mention over two live military firing zones.
Some are steeped in history and intrigue. Surrey’s Leith Hill is topped by a 19th-century Gothic tower. Brown Clee Hill in Shropshire is thought to be the scene of more World War II aeroplane crashes than any other UK hill. Ben Macdui, the highest point of both Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, is reputedly haunted by the Grey Man of Macdui. Cairnpapple Hill in West Lothian is the location of a 5500-year-old prehistoric site.
Some are within spitting distance of major cities and towns; others are distant and remote. Some are so easy to attain that a vehicle can be driven right up to the summit; others require arduous, long walks over demanding terrain. It means that for every Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire (gained by the shortest of walks) there is a Carn Eige in Ross and Cromarty, a day-long expedition over wild territory.
It is this sheer diversity that makes the county tops so appealing: a snapshot of everything that is eccentric and wonderful about walking in the UK. Their conquest will take you into no less than ten of the UK’s National Parks: the Brecon Beacons, the Cairngorms, Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Lake District, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, the Peak District, Northumberland, Pembrokeshire and Snowdonia.
And the best thing about the county tops? There is at least one on everyone’s doorstep. It may be lowly and infrequently walked, or lofty and a honeypot summit, yet the accomplishment, the sense of achievement, is the same. For this is the roof of its respective land, and for a few precious moments the walker is king or queen of that county, lording it above all others, standing the very highest. That is a special feeling.
The historic counties
The historic (or true) counties are the administrative areas that survived for more than a hundred years before sweeping local government changes in the 1970s. They comprise 91 counties (92 if Cromartyshire and Ross-shire are divided). Of the 91, 39 are in England, 33 in Scotland, 13 in Wales and 6 in Northern Ireland. The largest county is Yorkshire and the smallest is Clackmannanshire. Shetland, Suffolk, Cornwall and Fermanagh are the most northerly, easterly, southerly and westerly counties respectively. The lowest county top is Huntingdonshire (Boring Field, 80m) and the highest is Inverness-shire (Ben Nevis, 1344m).
There are now more than 200 administrative areas, counties and unitary authorities in the UK, including the likes of Dudley, Merthyr Tydfil and Southend-on-Sea. It would take a dedicated adventurer to visit the summits of them all, particularly as many are unfortunately low and uninspiring. For example, the list of these high points includes the likes of Liverpool’s Woolton Hill (89m), Melling Mount (36m) in Sefton and, the lowest of them all, East Mount (11m) in Kingston upon Hull. In case you are that dedicated adventurer, a full list is set out in Appendix B.
Defining a county top
A county top is the highest natural (non-man-made) ground within the boundaries or on the border of the county, even if the point of greatest altitude is found on a peak rising in an adjacent county.
Around half a dozen of the county tops, predominately the English ones, have very flat summits, making finding the absolute highest point a Herculean task. A GPS is a useful accompaniment on visits to such places.
More often than not, the highest point is glaringly obvious and will be marked by a cairn, trig pillar or monument. When it is not, such as the tops of Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Suffolk, an attempt is made in the route description to identify the exact highest point. Occasionally the location of the summit becomes a purely subjective matter; it is then up to the walker to decide on his or her highest point.
Using this guide
This guide is split into 82 route descriptions, taking the county tops of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in turn. Six of those routes visit a pair of county tops because they are so close that they can easily be tackled together, while three further routes describe ascents of shared county tops, notably Ben Macdui, the summit of both Aberdeenshire and Banffshire. The Cheviot in Northumberland and Hangingstone Hill in Roxburghshire can also be easily visited in a single walk, but separate routes are given for the sake of preserving national identities.
The cairn straddling the summit of Dunkery Beacon, Somerset (Route 3)
Looking across Antrim from Slieve Gullion (Route 79)
At the beginning of each of the 82 route descriptions the following information is provided: height of the top (or tops) (in metres), location, where to start, map or maps required, difficulty and enjoyment ratings, distance (in kilometres and miles), ascent (in metres) and time required for the entire walk (see ‘Timing’ below). These information boxes are followed by a route description and a map indicating the start/finish point (except in the case of the longest routes which begin with a long walk in where the start/finish is off the map), the advised direction of travel and the location of the county top.
Difficulty
Each walk is given a difficulty rating between zero and five, which is based on a raft of factors, including route-finding, ascent, time, distance and terrain. The ratings are, however, all relative. A moderate walk will become harder in snow or in high winds, for instance. The ratings are simply to give a general impression of what the walker is likely to expect if they embark on any of the walks. Ben Nevis, Ben Macdui, Ben More Assynt and Carn Eige may not be the hardest mountains to climb in the UK, but they are certainly among the hardest to climb in this book, hence they are rated as five for difficulty.
Short-distance walks or ones involving a small amount of ascent are rated as zero or one. Longer walks requiring navigation skills and over rougher ground score two or three. Walks that are longer still (in distance and time), traverse complicated landscape, involve many hundreds of metres of height gain and loss, and are in locations where weather conditions can change rapidly, are rated as four or five.
Enjoyment
Ratings