Castle Crag

About Castle Crag

Castle Crag has a distinction no other fell can claim: it is the smallest hill in Alfred Wainwright's Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, and the only Wainwright standing below 1,000 feet. At 290 metres it sits among the North Western Fells, and also appears on the Synge and Fellranger lists.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Castle Crag (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 54.533, -3.162. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is large shelter cairn on rock. On broad or flat summits the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

obvious summit

Record revised

25-Jan-24

Drop measured from

NY246156 · 214 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.

Get food nearby

3 places to eat or drink within 10 km of the summit, rated under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (Scotland runs its own Food Hygiene Information Scheme, a pass/fail equivalent).

Classifications and ratings are the local authority's own and can be coarse — this is a lead, not a guarantee of opening hours or that food is served to non-residents. Follow a name through to the official rating page to check, and confirm before you rely on it.

Food hygiene data from the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland (Open Government Licence v3.0). Distances and directions computed by OpenFell from the summit.

Which hill this one belongs to

Castle Crag is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Dale Head (754 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 214 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