74 Sutherland – Ben More Assynt 998m
75 Caithness – Morven 706m
76 Orkney – Ward Hill 479m
77 Shetland – Ronas Hill 450m
Introduction
78 County Down – Slieve Donard 853m
79 County Armagh – Slieve Gullion 576m
80 County Fermanagh – Cuilcagh 666m
81 County Londonderry and County Tyrone – Sawel Mountain 678m
82 County Antrim – Trostan 550m
APPENDIX 1 The UK’s historic county tops by height
APPENDIX 2 The present-day county tops of England, Wales and Scotland by height
Sculpture on the Dunstable Downs, Bedfordshire (Route 9)
Striding Edge, Helvellyn (Route 35)
INTRODUCTION
It would make a perplexing quiz question. What do the tundra plateau of the Cairngorms, a back garden on the southeast fringe of London and a military firing zone in the Pennines have in common? Answer: they are the locations of three of the UK’s historic ‘county tops’.
No hill list is quite like this one. No other is as diverse or, frankly, as wonderfully ridiculous. The only qualification is being the highest natural ground in a respective county, regardless of obscurity or reputation, be it Inverness-shire’s 1344m Ben Nevis or Huntingdonshire’s 80m Boring Field. In what other list of hills would these two contrary places be happy bedfellows? In between, the roll of county tops includes a wondrous array of high places that thrill the dreams of hillwalkers: Ben Lomond, Cuilcagh, Kinder Scout, Meikle Says Law, Merrick, Pen y Fan and Worcestershire Beacon, to name but a few.
The focus of the 82 routes described here is the so-called historic or traditional counties. These counties hark back to a pre-1974 era when boundaries and names had remained unaltered for more than a century: wonderfully evocative titles such as Westmorland, Cumberland and Brecknockshire. They have shaped the UK’s cultural and geographical identity, and while their boundaries may not be marked on modern maps, they were never formally abolished and so live on.
Perhaps the historic county tops are the country’s finest hill list? Here is the case. They feature in all other ‘bagging’ lists, with Munros, Corbetts, Donalds, Grahams, the Welsh 3000ers, numerous Marilyns and island high points prominent among their ranks. Visit all the county tops and the adventurer will have travelled the length and breadth of the UK, from Cornwall to Shetland, Norfolk to Fermanagh.
They rise in some of the nation’s most splendid landscape, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks, among them Dartmoor, the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District, the mountains of Mourne and the North Downs. The list also necessarily includes the highest points of the four countries of the UK – Ben Nevis (Scotland), Scafell Pike (England), Slieve Donard (Northern Ireland) and Snowdon (Wales).
Morven, the highest point in Caithness (Route 75)
Leith Hill Tower (Route 6)
The pursuit of the county tops takes the walker into deep glens and valleys, across rolling moorland, past plunging waterfalls and silent lochs, to the roof of soaring summits, along some of the UK’s famous long-distance footpaths, across knife-edge arêtes, through picturesque villages and above startling coastline, not to mention over two live military firing zones.
Some are steeped in history and intrigue. Surrey’s Leith Hill is topped by a 19th-century Gothic tower. Brown Clee Hill in Shropshire is thought to be the scene of more World War II aeroplane crashes than any other UK hill. Ben Macdui, the highest point of both Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, is reputedly haunted by the Grey Man of Macdui. Cairnpapple Hill in West Lothian is the location of a 5500-year-old prehistoric site.
Some are within spitting distance of major cities and towns; others are distant and remote. Some are so easy to attain that a vehicle can be driven right up to the summit; others require arduous, long walks over demanding terrain. It means that for every Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire (gained by the shortest of walks) there is a Carn Eige in Ross and Cromarty, a day-long expedition over wild territory.
It is this sheer diversity that makes the county tops so appealing: a snapshot of everything that is eccentric and wonderful about walking in the UK. Their conquest will take you into no less than ten of the UK’s National Parks: the Brecon Beacons, the Cairngorms, Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Lake District, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, the Peak District, Northumberland, Pembrokeshire and Snowdonia.
And the best thing about the county tops? There is at least one on everyone’s doorstep. It may be lowly and infrequently walked, or lofty and a honeypot summit, yet the accomplishment, the sense of achievement, is the same. For this is the roof of its respective land, and for a few precious moments the walker is king or queen of that county, lording it above all others, standing the very highest. That is a special feeling.
The historic counties
The historic (or true) counties are the administrative areas that survived for more than a hundred years before sweeping local government changes in the 1970s. They comprise 91 counties (92 if Cromartyshire and Ross-shire are divided). Of the 91, 39 are in England, 33 in Scotland, 13 in Wales and 6 in Northern Ireland. The largest county is Yorkshire and the smallest is Clackmannanshire. Shetland, Suffolk, Cornwall and Fermanagh are the most northerly, easterly, southerly and westerly counties respectively. The lowest county top is Huntingdonshire (Boring Field, 80m) and the highest is Inverness-shire (Ben Nevis, 1344m).
There are now more than 200 administrative areas, counties and unitary authorities in the UK, including the likes of Dudley, Merthyr Tydfil and Southend-on-Sea. It would take a dedicated adventurer to visit the summits of them all, particularly as many are unfortunately low and uninspiring. For example, the list of these high points includes the likes of Liverpool’s Woolton Hill (89m), Melling Mount (36m) in Sefton and, the lowest of them all, East Mount (11m) in Kingston upon Hull. In case you are that dedicated adventurer, a full list is set out in Appendix B.
Defining a county top
A county top is the highest natural (non-man-made) ground within the boundaries or on the border of the county, even if the point of greatest altitude is found on a peak rising in an adjacent county.
Around half a dozen of the county tops, predominately the English ones, have very flat summits, making finding the absolute highest point a Herculean task.
