England · Lake District National Park

Iron Crag · Ennerdale Fell

HewittNuttallSimmBirkettSyngeFellranger

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

Iron Crag, 640 m, Cumberland
Iron Crag, 640 m, Cumberland. Photo by Xapbpoh, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Height
640 m · 2,100 ft
Grid reference
NY 12326 11925
Coordinates
54.49506, -3.35517
County / area
Cumberland
OS Landranger
89
OS Explorer
OL4S 303
Summit feature
cairn E of wall
Key col
NY125113 (586 m)

About Iron Crag

Iron Crag stands between Crag Fell and Caw Fell in the western Lake District, and its naming is genuinely muddled: the summit itself carries no name on Ordnance Survey maps. Iron Crag seems properly to belong to the rocky outcrop below the top, while the ground beneath goes by Ennerdale Fell.

The western flank of those lower slopes, looking towards Ennerdale Water, is known as The Side. At 640 m the fell is a Hewitt, Nuttall, Simm, Birkett, Synge and Fellranger.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Iron 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

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
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Sunset
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Daylight
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Civil twilight ends
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Computed astronomically for 54.495, -3.355. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Summit weather live

Loading forecast for the summit (640 m)…

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

Finding the summit

Surveyor's note

rock on W side of wall 45m NW at NY 12288 11950 is 0.5m lower.

The recorded summit point is cairn E of wall. 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
03-Dec-13
Drop measured from
NY125113 · 586 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).

Rated places to eat within 10 km of Iron Crag
PlaceTypeRatingDistance
Shepherds Arms HotelHotel/bed & breakfast/guest house4 out of 56.6 km · NW
Fox & Hounds InnPub/bar/nightclub5 out of 56.6 km · NW
The GatherRestaurant/Cafe/Canteen5 out of 56.8 km · NW

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

Iron Crag is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Pillar (892 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 586 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
Caw Fell697 m1.3 km
Little Gowder Crag734.5 m1.9 km
Haycock797 m2.5 km
Lank Rigg541 m3.2 km
Steeple819 m3.4 km
Scoat Fell841 m3.6 km