Great Calva

About Great Calva

Great Calva sits roughly at the middle of the Northern Fells, which leaves it well away from roads and remote by Lakeland standards. Little Calva forms a subsidiary top to the west.

The fell stands at the head of a major geological fault running through the centre of the Lake District, and the line of that fault opens a view south all the way over Thirlmere. It falls within the Skiddaw Group SSSI.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Great Calva (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 54.671, -3.101. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

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

Survey method

obvious summit

Record revised

12-May-25

Drop measured from

NY 2871 3237 · 548.8 m

Classification history: Submarilyn status removed in May 2025 following redefinition by list author.

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

Great Calva is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Knott (710 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 549 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