Burnhope Seat

About Burnhope Seat

Burnhope Seat is high moorland in the North Pennines AONB, set between the headwaters of the Tees, the South Tyne and the Wear. The summit plateau is extensive and poorly drained, a spread of tussock grass and peat bog typical of the high Pennines.

The County Durham-Cumbria boundary crosses the top. The trig point is the highest ground in historic County Durham, though Mickle Fell exceeds it within the modern administrative county; in any case the true summit lies 400 m west and a metre higher, over the border in Cumbria. The B6277 between Alston and Middleton-in-Teesdale runs within 2 km of the top, and the hill can also be taken in on a circuit of Burnhope Reservoir from Weardale.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Burnhope Seat (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 54.733, -2.336. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is grassy mound. That distinction matters on broad or flat tops, where the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

Abney level

Record revised

23-Oct-23

Drop measured from

NY752350 · 554 m

Classification history: Nuttalls book gives the trig point at NY787375 (hill 8036) which is Durham historic county top. See Database Notes..

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.

The Burnhope Seat group

14 other listed summits sit in the same prominence group, with Burnhope Seat as the independent hill at its head.

Twelve highest shown, of 14 in the group.

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