Watch Hill · Setmurthy Common

About Watch Hill

Watch Hill stands out on the north-western edge of the Lake District near Cockermouth, detached enough from its neighbours to carry 157 metres of prominence and qualify as a Marilyn despite a height of only about 254 metres. That separation is what gives it its character as a viewpoint.

Skiddaw, Blencathra, Grisedale Pike and the Lord's Seat group are all in sight, along with the Cockermouth area and the Solway Coast AONB. Naming is loose: Setmurthy Common is used for the area including the high point, while Watch Hill, and sometimes The Hay, refer to ground west of the summit. A different Watch Hill lies some 19 km to the south-west near Whitehaven, reaching only 172 metres.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Watch Hill (Cockermouth) (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

—

Sunset

—

Daylight

—

Civil twilight ends

—

Computed astronomically for 54.674, -3.304. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is in forest 83m E of knoll by fence. That distinction matters on broad or flat tops, where the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Record revised

31-Mar-20

Drop measured from

NY161301 · 97 m

Classification history: Forest boundaries are shown incorrectly on 1:25k map.

Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.

The Watch Hill group

One other listed summit sits in the same prominence group, with Watch Hill 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