Misplaced Pages

The Outlying Fells of Lakeland is a 1974 book written by Alfred Wainwright dealing with hills in and around the Lake District of England. It differs from Wainwright's Pictorial Guides in that each of its 56 chapters describes a walk, sometimes taking in several summits, rather than a single fell. This has caused some confusion on the part of authors attempting to prepare a definitive list of peaks. The Outlying Fells do not form part of the 214 hills generally accepted as making up the Wainwrights, but they are included in Category 2B of the Hill Walkers' Register maintained by the Long Distance Walkers Association.

The book

The first edition was published in 1974 by The Westmorland Gazette. It was republished by Michael Joseph in 1992 (ISBN 0718140087) and a second edition, revised by Chris Jesty, was published by the Wainwright Society in 2020 (ISBN 9780993592126).

The first edition is uniform with the seven volumes of Wainwright's Pictorial Guides, with a yellow band at head and foot of the dustjacket. The wording on the cover, in Wainwright's characteristic handwritten style, is:

THE OUTLYING FELLS OF LAKELAND
being a Pictorial Guide
to the lesser fells
around the perimeter of Lakeland
written primarily for
old age pensioners and others
who can no longer climb high fells
but can still, within reason, potter
about on the short and easy slopes
and summits of the foothills.

Below this, there is a pen sketch showing an elderly but sprightly walker approaching the summit of a small hill, and Wainwright's signature.

Fells included

The arrangement of chapters in the book is clockwise starting in the south east, with the first chapter devoted to Scout Scar, a walk starting at Kendal Town Hall.

The list at the back of Wainwright's book contains 110 named fells and summits. Close inspection shows seven of them to refer to other hills in the list, while Newton Fell has two summits. Thus:

• Cartmel Fell is the same as Ravens Barrow (page 42).
• Hollow Moor is the summit of Green Quarter Fell (page 14).
• Hooker Crag is the summit of Muncaster fell (page 186).
• Newton Fell includes Newton Fell (North) and Newton Fell (South) (page 53).
• Potter Fell is the name given to the hill whose summits are Brunt Knotts and Ulgraves (page 8).
• Lord's Seat is the summit of Whitbarrow (page 36).
• Williamson's Monument is the same as High Knott (page 18).
• Woodland Fell is the name of the moor of which Yew Bank and Wool Knott are high points (page 102).

The addition of the 12 nameless summits brings the number of Wainwright's Outlying Fells to 116. This is 14 more than the 102 hills listed in John M. Turner's New Combined Indexes to A. Wainwright's Pictorial Guides (second edition, Lingdales Press, 1984). Turner's list omits two tops explicitly mentioned in the book (St. John's Hill and Newton Fell South) and the 12 nameless summits, and it contains many inaccuracies.

A second edition of Wainwright's book, revised by Chris Jesty, was published by Frances Lincoln in 2011 (ISBN 978-0-7112-3175-7). It maintains the same format but uses red to highlight paths on the route diagrams, and includes updated content (e.g. for Staveley Fell where Jesty says (p. 49) "There must be many people who, encouraged ... by the first edition of this book, have turned left and ... been turned back by an uncrossable fence." before providing an alternative route.)

Highest and lowest

The highest three summits listed by Wainwright are:

• Walna Scar 2,035 feet (620 m)
• Black Combe 1,970 feet (600 m)
• Great Yarlside 1,986 feet (605 m) according to Wainwright; in reality 1,936 feet (590 m)

The lowest summits are:

• Humphrey Head 172 feet (52 m), of which Wainwright says "A fell it certainly is not, being a meagre 172 feet above the sea..."
• Cartmel Fell/Raven's Barrow 500 feet (150 m)
• Newton Fell South 585 feet (178 m)

List of summits

The list below has been arranged in alphabetical order rather than height in order to align as far as possible with the list at the back of Wainwright's book. Summits are listed by the name used in the Database of British and Irish Hills, with cross-references from other summit names used by Wainwright to the entries in this table. Each summit appears only once, with height and grid reference. The "page" column allows the list to be sorted into Wainwright's order of chapters, which is roughly geographical, moving clockwise round the area from Kendal in the east.

Map

The map marks the highest point reached on each of Wainwright's 56 walks. The number adjacent to each point gives the page number of the corresponding chapter in the book and the colour indicates the general height of the summit. Clicking a number provides a link to the article about the fell in question.

See also

• List of Wainwrights
• List of Birketts
• List of fells in the Lake District – alphabetical and height listings
• List of hills in the Lake District – topographical groupings

Notes

1. ^ The Database of British and Irish Hills records Wainwright's Great Yarside summit as hill 2575, 591 m (1,939 ft), and a nearby higher Great Yarlside summit as hill 3661 at 597 m (1,959 ft). An explanatory note suggests that Wainwright obtained his figure from a misprint in some editions of the OS maps.

References

1. "Hillwalkers' Register 2". www.ldwa.org.uk. Long Distance Walkers Association. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
2. For more up-to-date heights, grid references and other data, see the Database of British and Irish Hills
3. "Database of British and Irish Hills: Changes and issues: Great Yarlside". www.hills-database.co.uk. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
4. "Version 12.1". Database of British and Irish Hills. Retrieved 24 May 2012.

Sources

• Wainwright, A. (1974). The Outlying Fells of Lakeland. Kendal: Westmorland Gazette.
• Wainwright, A. (2011). The Outlying Fells of Lakeland. Revised by Chris Jesty (2nd ed.). Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-7112-3175-7.

External links

• Wainwright Walks on the Outlying Fells
• Database of British and Irish Hills
• Wainwrights On The Air based on Wainwright's Hills – English Lake District
• Alfred Wainwright Books & Memorabilia

• Hiking books
• Travel guide books
• Fells of the Lake District
• English non-fiction books
• Walking in the United Kingdom
• Geography of Cumbria
• Tourist attractions in Cumbria
• British travel books
• Books about the Lake District