Hills of Britain and Ireland

Introduction

This is database of 17,000 hills in the British Isles, with detailed maps (OS Explorer 1:25,000 scale for Great Britain), with photos and links to 'hill bagging' websites with trip reports.

Use these maps to investigate a particular hill, or a region map to devise a walk linking together hills in a particular area. Some people attempt to climb all the hills in a particular list ("hill bagging").

If you live in a non-traditional hill area, e.g. the south-east, the Marilyns or Humps are recommended - theses 'relatively high' hills are scattered throughout the whole country.

Hills are grouped together in 3 ways

The 'county' lists have every hill with a drop of 30m / 90 feet on all sides (which is why the database is so large). The national lists only have major summits with bigger 'relative heights'.

Online Availability of OS quality mapping

What is a Mountain?

Hills can be classified in several ways.

Relatively High Hills

The Marilyn's are a list of the relatively high hills (i.e. hills with a big drop on all sides compared to the surrounding land, not their absolute height). This means there are some in the southeast! The name Marilyn is a play on words - Scotland has Munro's - Marilyn Munroe.

Some very obvious viewpoints are still missed, for example Beachy Head (because its not a summit, its a slope of a higher hill).

For more on the Marilyn's, see : The Relative Hills of Britain by Alan Dawson.

British and Irish Hills Database

The source of this data is the Database of British and Irish Hills. Most website and mountain software use this list, so the "hill numbers" should be portable

Notes