TACit Tables: The Hewitts and Marilyns of Wales

About the Hewitts

A Hewitt is a Hill in England, Wales or Ireland over Two Thousand feet high (610 metres) with a drop of at least 30 metres (98 feet) all round. There are 525 Hewitts in total: 137 in Wales, 178 in England and 211 in Ireland (Black Mountain is in both England and Wales). There is a long tradition of climbing 2000-foot hills in England and Wales, and it is safe to claim that nowhere else in the world can match the amount of attention and analysis given to hills of such modest height. At least seven different publications(1) have appeared over the years containing lists of 2000-foot summits of Wales. The addition of this booklet to an apparently overcrowded field can be justified by a number of features which make it original and useful:

As well as the height above sea level (absolute height), the lists show the drop from each hill (relative height). This is explained on pages 3 and 4.

As well as the 2000-foot summits, there is a list of significant lower summits - Marilyns - which have a drop of 150 metres all round. Many of these are interesting and worthwhile hills in their own right. Their inclusion offsets the arbitrary nature of the 2000-foot limit, and may encourage hillwalkers to visit new areas and stray from over-used paths on to less popular hills.

Most other lists have considered England and Wales as a single entity. There is little logical reason for this, as Englandandwales is certainly not a country. It may be regarded as two countries or two-thirds of a country (along with Scotland) or half a country (with Scotland and Northern Ireland), depending on your point of view. This booklet treats Wales separately, as it is quite reasonable for someone to be interested in the hills of Wales but not those of England.

The booklet is designed for summit baggers, with space for recording dates of ascent.

It is part of a series with a consistent format, and costs much less than all other current lists, apart from that by Buxton & Lewis(1).

Some of the previously published lists are out-of-date and no longer available, notably the widely-used list produced by George Bridge(1) in 1973. Currently the most accurate and widely used list is in The Mountains of England and Wales Volume 1: Wales by John and Anne Nuttall. This is a useful guidebook but it includes a very large number of hills, and makes no distinction between major summits and minor tops. Many walkers will feel that by using a more selective list they can climb all the 2000-foot summits without having to visit every one of the lesser tops. The list of Hewitts deliberately includes fewer summits than the Nuttalls by requiring hills to have a drop of at least 30 metres (98 feet) all round. Although this is just as arbitrary as the 15-metre limit which the Nuttalls use, in practice it works well, as almost all the Hewitts are worth visiting in their own right, whereas many of the lesser summits do not warrant a detour from a path or ridge. The inclusion in this booklet of the drop from each summit together with the list of SubHewitts (page 11) makes it easier for walkers to decide for themselves which summits they wish to climb, without feeling obliged to take in every one of the minor tops in a round of all the 2000-foot hills.

Document Index