Whitfell

About Whitfell

Sometimes written Whit Fell, this 573-metre summit is the highest point on the broad ridge west of the Duddon Valley, between Black Combe and Harter Fell. The hill itself is a grassy, fairly featureless mound, heavily grazed by sheep, though it carries a very large cairn whose stones may have come from a tumulus.

The view does more work than the summit. It takes in the Duddon Valley and its estuary, the western Coniston fells, the Eskdale fells with Scafell and Bowfell, much of western Cumbria including the Esk, Mite and Irt estuaries, the Isle of Man, and the hills south towards Black Combe.

Visits are infrequent. A bridleway crosses north of the top, but the fell is more often taken in on a round with Burn Moor, Kinmont Buck Barrow and Buck Barrow from the Corney Fell road, as Wainwright described in The Outlying Fells of Lakeland.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Whitfell (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 54.325, -3.295. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is large cairn/shelter on tumulus. 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-Jun-24

Drop measured from

SD 1492 8882 · 350.2 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.

The Whitfell group

13 other listed summits sit in the same prominence group, with Whitfell as the independent hill at its head.

Twelve highest shown, of 13 in the group.

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