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ENGLAND

Introduction

Worcestershire Beacon in the snow (Route 16)

From the lowlands of East Anglia to the high lands of the Lake District, England’s county tops are a broad assortment of hills and mountains. The highest of all is Scafell Pike, one of the so-called ’Three Peaks’ (along with Ben Nevis and Snowdon), as well as being the summit of Cumberland. Writing in one of his pictorial guides, hill chronicler Alfred Wainwright described Scafell Pike as ‘the ultimate, the supreme, the one objective above all others’.

From south to north, England’s county tops are at first lofty, with the highest points of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset all exceeding the 400m mark. The summits of the Home Counties and those around London come next: all low-lying and all under 300m.

Vertically challenged they may be, but these hills are not without attributes. Terrific views are guaranteed from Black Down in Sussex, Leith Hill in Surrey and Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire, while the county tops of Cambridgeshire and Essex, and Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, can be combined in entertaining walks. The pimples of the east are the lowest in England, with Huntingdonshire’s Boring Field the ultimate nadir. The high points of Norfolk and Suffolk are not much higher, but at least breach the 100m contour.

The westerly hills – Black Mountain in Herefordshire, Shropshire’s Brown Clee Hill and Worcestershire Beacon, as well as lovely Cleeve Common in Gloucestershire – will reaffirm the walker’s faith in the county tops. And from then on the hills begin to soar. First there are the boggy summits of the Peak District, with Derbyshire’s Kinder Scout – the scene of the Mass Trespass in 1932 – the best known of their number.

And finally England’s crowning glory: the Lake District, where Scafell Pike, The Old Man of Coniston (Lancashire) and Helvellyn (Westmorland) lie in wait. Here the walker treads in the footmarks of Wainwright and Wordsworth as he crosses England’s highest and most superlative mountains. Rising just 2km from the Scottish border is England’s last county top, The Cheviot, a brooding moorland mountain often immersed in swirling mist.

England’s 39 county tops, described here in 36 walks, encapsulate the vast array of the country’s high places, found in virtually every National Park and numerous Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.