Birks

About Birks

Birks sits two kilometres south-west of Patterdale in the Eastern Fells, on a shoulder of the north-east ridge of St Sunday Crag. It is thoroughly overshadowed by that larger neighbour, and many walkers cross its top only in passing on the way up or down.

The name refers to a place where birch trees dominate. Birks appears on the Wainwright, Nuttall, Birkett, Synge and Fellranger lists.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Birks (Lake District) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Heights, prominence and grid references come from the Database of British & Irish Hills, not from Wikipedia.

Access rights here

General position for England — local byelaws, seasonal restrictions and closures can override it. Full details: access rights in England · check another location.

Daylight at this summit today

Sunrise

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Sunset

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Daylight

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Civil twilight ends

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Computed astronomically for 54.521, -2.959. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is no feature: grass mound. That distinction matters on broad or flat tops, where the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

Leica Disto/Leica RX1250

Record revised

19-May-19

Drop measured from

NY 3754 1405 · 603.7 m

Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.

Long-distance paths past this hill

One waymarked long-distance route runs within 2.5 km of the summit — useful if you are linking this hill into a longer walk, or want a made path for the approach.

Route lines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); distance from the summit computed by OpenFell.

Which hill this one belongs to

Birks is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to St Sunday Crag (841 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 604 m.

Grouping is by prominence alone: a summit belongs to the nearest higher Marilyn it connects to without a deeper intervening col. Over a large massif that can gather hills no one would walk in a single day, and which few would describe as parts of the same mountain — it is a measure of independence, not a suggested route.

Nearest listed peaks