England · Yorkshire Dales National Park

Fountains Fell South Top

Fountains Fell South Top, 663 m, North Yorkshire
Fountains Fell South Top, 663 m, North Yorkshire. Photo by Dave Dunford, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Height
663.4 m · 2,177 ft
Grid reference
SD 86893 70796
Coordinates
54.13285, -2.20209
County / area
North Yorkshire
OS Landranger
98
OS Explorer
OL2S OL2W OL30S
Summit feature
tiny cairn
Key col
SD 8656 7123 (647.2 m)

About Fountains Fell South Top

Fountains Fell South Top is the subsidiary summit of Fountains Fell in the Yorkshire Dales, reaching 662 m and qualifying as a Nuttall.

The parent summit to the north stands at 668 m with 243 m of prominence, making it a Marilyn, and a third top further south reaches 610 m, the most southerly 2,000 ft summit in the Pennines. The fell's eastern slopes form part of the National Trust's Malham Tarn and Moor estate.

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

Access rights here

Conditional Right to roam: Right to roam only on mapped CRoW open access land.

Permission needed Wild camping: Needs the landowner's permission — the Dartmoor commons are the only exception in England.

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
Sunset
Daylight
Civil twilight ends

Computed astronomically for 54.133, -2.202. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Summit weather live

Loading forecast for the summit (663 m)…

Forecast adjusted to summit altitude. Weather data from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0).

Finding the summit

Surveyor's note

ground 15m S at SD 86889 70779 is lower.

The recorded summit point is tiny cairn. 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
19-Oct-18
Drop measured from
SD 8656 7123 · 647.2 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.

RouteTotal lengthFrom summit
Pennine Way 411 km 0.7 km

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

Which hill this one belongs to

Fountains Fell South Top is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Fountains Fell (668 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 647 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

PeakHeightDistance
Fountains Fell 667.8 m 0.9 km
Darnbrook Fell 624 m 2.5 km
Pen-y-ghent 694.1 m 4 km
Plover Hill 679.9 m 4.8 km
Birks Fell 610.4 m 7.5 km
Yockenthwaite Moor 643 m 11 km