Great Cockup is a

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle o ...

in the northern region of the English

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

, one of the four Uldale Fells (the others being

Longlands Fell Longlands Fell is a small fell in the northern part of the English Lake District. It is situated in the high ground known as the Uldale Fells, 5.5 kilometres south west of the village of Caldbeck. It reaches a height of 483 m (1,585&nbs ...

, Great Sca Fell and Meal Fell).

Description

Great Cockup reaches a height of and merits a chapter in

Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume ''Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'', published ...

's ''

Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells ''A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'' is a series of seven books by A. Wainwright, detailing the fells (the local word for hills and mountains) of the Lake District in northwest England. Written over a period of 13 years from 1952, they ...

''. Wainwright describes the fell as functional rather than ornamental, writing: "Viewed from a distance Great Cockup appears as a modest but extensive eminence with no obvious summit and nothing calling for closer inspection. First impressions are confirmed by a tour of exploration, the fell underfoot proving no more attractive than the fell at a distance."

Etymology

The fell is known as "Great" to distinguish it from its smaller neighbour Little Cockup which lies on its north-western shoulder overlooking the hamlet of Orthwaite with a height of . The fell's name originates from the

Old English language Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th cen ...

, a combination of the words ''cocc'' and ''hop'', where ''hop'' means a secluded valley and ''cocc'' means a

woodcock The woodcocks are a group of seven or eight very similar living species of wading birds in the genus ''Scolopax''. The genus name is Latin for a snipe or woodcock, and until around 1800 was used to refer to a variety of waders. The English name ...

black grouse The black grouse (''Lyrurus tetrix''), also known as northern black grouse, Eurasian black grouse, blackgame or blackcock, is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, spanning across the Palearctic in moorland and step ...

. So the meaning is probably "larger fell above the secluded valley where Woodcock or Black Grouse are found". Whaley points out that this is the meaning "with the valley name being transferred to the hills, but without more evidence this cannot be proven". The fell's name quite often causes mirth because of its slight

rudeness Rudeness (also called effrontery) is a display of actual or perceived disrespect by not complying with the social norms or etiquette of a group or culture. These norms have been established as the essential boundaries of normally accepted beha ...

and reference to

sexual slang Sexual slang is a set of linguistics, linguistic terms and phrases used to refer to sexual organs, processes, and activities; they are generally considered colloquialism, colloquial rather than formal or medical, and some may be seen as impolite ...

. Cockup means a mess-up in the

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

language, and the fell was visited by British television personality

Denis Norden Denis Mostyn Norden (6 February 1922 – 19 September 2018) was an English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during the Second World War. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the ...

for one edition of his TV show ''

It'll be Alright on the Night ''It'll be Alright on the Night'' is a British television bloopers programme screened on ITV and produced by ITV Studios. It was one of the first series created with the specific purpose of showing behind the scenes bloopers from film and TV. ...

'', a programme which consisted of out-takes from film and television that he called "Cockups". The programme was called ''Alright on the Night's Cockup Trip'' and was broadcast in 1996. The fell's name has also been adopted for a local beer brewed by the Hesket Newmarket Brewery, called "Great Cockup

Porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian regional airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., ...

" a dark-coloured

stout Stout is a dark, top-fermented beer with a number of variations, including dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout, and imperial stout. The first known use of the word ''stout'' for beer, in a document dated 1677 found in the Egerton Manuscript ...

with an

ABV Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

of 3.3%.

Topography

The fell has a series of stone-built

grouse Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes, in the family Phasianidae. Grouse are presently assigned to the tribe Tetraonini (formerly the subfamily Tetraoninae and the family Tetraonidae), a classification supported by mitochondr ...

butts west of the summit, some of which have been dismantled leaving just the foundations in the ground; they can confuse walkers as to their original purpose. The lower southern slope of the fell has a large, isolated boulder which is marked on large-scale maps; this is thought to be an erratic left by a retreating

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

. The fell has also yielded some rare

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s with unusual forms of dendroid

graptolite Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding Filter feeders are a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and ...

s being found on the slopes.

Ascent

Great Cockup is almost always ascended from the hamlet of Orthwaite following the

bridleway A bridle path, also bridleway, equestrian trail, horse riding path, ride, bridle road, or horse trail, is a trail or a thoroughfare that is used by people riding horses, riding on horses. Trails originally created for use by horses often now s ...

up Hause Gill for and then leaving it and ascending Great Cockup's steep southern slopes to the summit. A direct ascent over Little Cockup is possible but the

bracken Bracken (''Pteridium'') is a genus of large, coarse ferns in the family Dennstaedtiaceae. Ferns (Pteridophyta) are vascular plants that have alternating generations, large plants that produce spores and small plants that produce sex cells (eggs ...

can be thick at certain times of the year. Great Cockup is separated from Meal Fell, to the east, by the pass of Trusmadoor.

Summit

The view from the summit is dominated by a good view of

Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is the sixth-highest in England. It lies just north of the town of Keswick, Cumbria, and dominates the skyline in this part of the northern lakes. It is the ...

's northern slopes while there is an excellent open outlook towards the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...

In popular culture

On 12 October 1996

presented the TV show ''

It'll Be Alright on the Night ''It'll be Alright on the Night'' is a British television bloopers programme screened on ITV and produced by ITV Studios. It was one of the first series created with the specific purpose of showing behind the scenes bloopers from film and TV. ...

'' in episode 15 ''Alright on the Night's Cockup Trip''. This decision was made as the name of the hill references the theme and content of ''It'll Be Alright on the Night'', which is mistakes made in TV shows. On 21 December 2020, YouTuber Tom Scott posted a video where he hiked Great Cockup whilst he gave a monologue to camera, in homage to the aforementioned TV show's title sequence which took place on the hill.

References

External links

Graptolite bearing rocks on Great Cockup

Hesket Newmarket Brewery

Alright on the Night's Cockup Trip 1996
{{Northern Fells Fells of the Lake District Allerdale