England · Lake District National Park

Rosthwaite Fell - Bessyboot

WainwrightBirkettSyngeFellranger

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.

Rosthwaite Fell - Bessyboot, 551 m, Cumberland
Rosthwaite Fell - Bessyboot, 551 m, Cumberland. Photo by Mick Knapton at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Height
551 m · 1,808 ft
Grid reference
NY 25831 12479
Coordinates
54.50220, -3.14685
County / area
Cumberland
OS Landranger
89 90
OS Explorer
OL4S
Summit feature
cairn
Key col
NY257121 (507 m)

About Rosthwaite Fell - Bessyboot

Rosthwaite Fell lies about 12 kilometres due south of Keswick and 2 kilometres south of Rosthwaite village in Borrowdale, with loose links to the Scafell group of fells.

The name is Old Norse, roughly the peak above the clearing with a heap of stones, from hreysi, a heap of stones, and thveit, a clearing.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Rosthwaite 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 54.502, -3.147. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Summit weather live

Loading forecast for the summit (551 m)…

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

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
23-Oct-23
Drop measured from
NY257121 · 507 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
Cumbria Way 119 km 1.3 km

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

Which hill this one belongs to

Rosthwaite Fell - Bessyboot is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Scafell Pike (978 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 507 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
Rosthwaite Fell 612 m 0.7 km
Dovenest Top 633.3 m 1.1 km
Combe Door Top 676 m 1.7 km
Eagle Crag 522.8 m 1.7 km
Combe Head 735.3 m 1.8 km
Sergeant's Crag 571 m 1.9 km