England · Lake District National Park

Grey Knotts

WainwrightNuttallBirkettSyngeFellranger

3 classifications here — Birkett, Synge and Fellranger — belong to lists OpenFell holds only part of, so they have no list page. See how far the coverage goes.

Grey Knotts, 697 m, Cumberland
Grey Knotts, 697 m, Cumberland. Photo by Mick Knapton at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Height
697 m · 2,287 ft
Grid reference
NY 21730 12566
Coordinates
54.50236, -3.21019
County / area
Cumberland
OS Landranger
89 90
OS Explorer
OL4S
Summit feature
cairn on outcrop on W top
Key col
NY216122 (681 m)

About Grey Knotts

Grey Knotts lies a kilometre south of the B5289 where it crosses Honister Pass, and is clearly seen from mid-Borrowdale where it rises above Seatoller. At 697 metres it forms part of a ridge climbing from the woodland behind Seatoller and running south-west then south for four kilometres to Great Gable.

Strictly the name belongs only to the summit rocks; Ordnance Survey maps record the wider high ground here as Seatoller Fell, but the fell as a whole has come to be called Grey Knotts.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Grey Knotts (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 54.502, -3.210. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Summit weather live

Loading forecast for the summit (697 m)…

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

Finding the summit

Surveyor's note

outcrop 155m ENE at NY 21876 12581 is as high and OS bolt and cairn 45m NE of this at NY 21914 12615 is lower.

The recorded summit point is cairn on outcrop on W top. 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
15-Aug-12
Drop measured from
NY216122 · 681 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
Coast to Coast Walk 303 km over the top

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

Which hill this one belongs to

Grey Knotts is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Great Gable (899 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 681 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
Brandreth 715 m 0.7 km
Base Brown 646 m 1.4 km
Honister Crag 634 m 1.7 km
Green Gable 799.9 m 1.9 km
Fleetwith Pike 648.9 m 2 km
Great Gable 898.8 m 2.3 km