Great Whernside

About Great Whernside

Great Whernside crowns the eastern side of Wharfedale above Kettlewell, and should not be mixed up with Whernside, a separate fell some 27 km west. The two names cause regular confusion.

The summit acts as a watershed between Wharfedale and Nidderdale, and marks the boundary between the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Nidderdale National Landscape. The River Nidd has its source on the eastern slopes, above Angram Reservoir.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Great Whernside (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 54.161, -1.998. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

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

Record revised

09-Jul-22

Drop measured from

SD 7894 8319 · 416.4 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.

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.

The Great Whernside group

3 other listed summits sit in the same prominence group, with Great Whernside as the independent hill at its head.

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