Knott, Caldbeck
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Knott is a
mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...
in the northern part of the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...
Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...
. It is the highest point of the ''Back o'Skiddaw'' region, an area of wild and unfrequented
moorland Moorland or moor is a type of Habitat (ecology), habitat found in upland (geology), upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and the biomes of montane grasslands and shrublands, characterised by low-growing vegetation on So ...
to the north of
Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is traditionally considered to be the List of Wainwrights, fourth-highest peak but depending on what topographic prominence is thought to be significant is also ...
and
Blencathra Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly of the Cumbrian Mountains, in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top at . Name For many years, Ordnance Surv ...
. Other tops in this region include High Pike, Carrock Fell and
Great Calva Great Calva is a fell in the Lake District, England. It is in the Northern Fells, lying roughly at the centre of this region of high ground. As a result, it is distant from roads and quite remote by Lakeland standards. Great Calva stands at ...
. The fell's slopes are mostly smooth, gentle, and covered in
grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...
, with a few deep
ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...
s. It stands a long way from a road and requires a long walk across the moor top get to it; this, as well as the fact that it is hidden from the rest of the Lake District by the two aforementioned giants, make it one of the most unfrequented tops in the Lakes. When it is climbed it is most often from
Mungrisdale Mungrisdale is a small village and civil parish in the north east of the English Lake District in Cumbria. It is also the name of the valley in which the village sits. Mungrisdale is a popular starting point for ascents of the nearby hills, s ...
or from the north via
Great Sca Fell Great Sca Fell is a fell in the English Lake District, southwest of the village of Caldbeck. It is the highest of the four Uldale Fells, the other three being Longlands Fell, Meal Fell and Great Cockup. It is a Wainwright, and the lowest o ...
. The word ''Knott'' is of
Cumbric Cumbric is an extinct Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the ''Hen Ogledd'' or "Old North", in Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the ot ...
origin, and means simply "hill".


Topography

Skiddaw and Blencathra are the best known of the Northern Fells, fronting the range as they loom above Keswick and the road to Penrith. Behind this wall is a further group of fells, commonly referred to as Back o' Skiddaw. Wainwright, Alfred: ''
A 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 ...
, Book 5 The Northern Fells'':
Birkett, Bill: ''Complete Lakeland Fells'': Collins Willow (1994): Knott stands at the centre of this group, in addition to being the highest point. The Back o'Skiddaw group is separated from Blencathra and the Skiddaw massif by Skiddaw Forest. It is not a woodland area — other than the windbreak of Skiddaw House — but is a former
royal forest A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...
(an area once set aside for hunting) and is today a marshy upland area at around surrounded on all sides by higher fells. Three major streams flow from Skiddaw Forest, dividing the Northern Fells into three sectors. Dash Beck runs north-west, the River Caldew north-east and the River Glenderaterra south, between Skiddaw and Blencathra. Knott itself is a long whale-backed ridge running for in an east–west direction. With the exception of the extreme east and west, the
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 of M ...
has broad and gentle contours clad primarily in grass. Many of the streams draining it have cut deeply into Knott's flanks, exposing yellow and red soils which are visible in distant views. The western end of the fell is Burn Tod, which descends roughly between Burntod and Hause Gills, both tributaries of Dash Beck. To the north is a parallel but shorter shoulder, Frozen Fell, and these two spurs are the only part of the fell which drain westward to the River Derwent. From the south of the summit a ridge descends across a narrow col to the neighbouring fell of Great Calva. A further spur on this flank, across to the east, is named Snab. Wiley Gill and Burdell Gill fall on this side to the River Caldew and, ultimately, the Eden at Carlisle. The eastern terminus of the summit ridge is Coomb Height. At the base of the slope, amid rough ground, are the remains of Carrock Fell Mine. Coombe Height is bordered by Wet Swine Gill and Grainsgill Beck, further tributaries of the Caldew. Two connecting ridges run north from Knott, separated by the deep ravines of Roughton Gill. The western arms drops across an area of bog and with little reascent arrives at the summit of Great Sca Fell. The eastern branch crosses Miller Moss and then runs at high level for to High Pike, first passing the subsidiary tops of Great Lingy Hill and Harestones.


Miller Moss

In August 2018 it was reported that Miller Moss, also known as Little Lingy Hill, had been re-surveyed and measured as with a
prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...
of , enabling it to be classed as a mountain and included in the list of Nuttalls.


Summit

Wainwright noted of the summit that ''"If the party consists of more than one person and if, further, a bat, ball and wickets can be found in the depths of somebody's rucksack, a cricket match can be played on turf many a county ground might covet."'' Amidst the grass a
cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...
has been built. Further such markers adorn the tops of Coomb Height, Burn Tod and Snab, but the ridge top is otherwise featureless and the paths faint and intermittent. The view southward is constrained by Blencathra and Skiddaw, neither displaying their best side, but between the two is a narrow slice of central Lakeland. This includes a section of distant
Thirlmere Thirlmere is a reservoir in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district in Cumbria and the English Lake District National Park, Lake District. The Helvellyn ridge lies to the east of Thirlmere. To the west of Thirlmere are a numbe ...
along with the
Scafells The Scafells, or Scafell Massif, are a range of fells in the Cumbrian Mountains of England, made up of the remains of a caldera volcano. Fells in the range include Broad Crag, Ill Crag, Scafell, and Scafell Pike, England's tallest mountain. G ...
. To the north are the
Solway Firth The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of Great Britain, forming part of the border between England and Scotland. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) from Dumfries and Gallow ...
and the hills of south west
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
, but there is little interest to the foreground.
Computer-generated summit panorama


Mining

Although the main part of Carrock Fell Mine is beneath Carrock Fell, there are some workings to the south of Grainsgill Beck at the base of Coomb Height. A trench runs northward down the slope to the beck, containing a number of shafts and levels. These surface workings follow the line of the Harding vein, the most productive part of the mine. Carrock Fell Mine was the only British
tungsten Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. It is a metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in compounds with other elements. It was identified as a distinct element in 1781 and first ...
mine outside
Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
and was operated at various times between 1850 and 1982 when the price of tungsten was sufficient. Although reserves of
wolframite Wolframite is an iron, manganese, and tungstate mineral with a chemical formula of that is the intermediate mineral between ferberite ( rich) and hübnerite ( rich). Along with scheelite, the wolframite series are the most important tungsten ...
and other tungsten ores are believed to remain, the Harding vein beneath Knott has long been worked out and the levels were used for dumping sludge from ore processing operations.Adams, John: ''Mines of the Lake District Fells'': Dalesman (1995) A small operation on the southern flank of Knott was Little Wiley Gill Mine. A 40-yard level was driven here, but no other information survives.


Ascents

From Orthwaite to the north-west a track can be followed to the source of Hause Gill and the
col A col is the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks; a mountain pass or saddle. COL, CoL or col may also refer to: Computers * Caldera OpenLinux, a defunct Linux distribution * , an HTML element specifying a column * A collision sig ...
between Knott and Great Calva. Alternatively a start can be made at Longlands, crossing the intervening ridge between Meal Fell and
Great Cockup Great Cockup is a fell in the Northern Fells, northern region of the English Lake District, one of the four Uldale Fells (the others being Longlands Fell, Great Sca Fell and Meal Fell). Description Great Cockup reaches a height of and merits ...
and then following a path up between Burn Tod and Frozen Fell. Fell Side provides access from the north, along the old mine track beside Roughten Gill. Once the mine is reached a pathless climb can be made to the summit. The access road to Carrock Fell Mine can be used to lead onto Coomb Height for an ascent from Mosedale. Wainwright gave dire warnings regarding the mine workings on this route.


References

* Complete Lakeland Fells, Bill Birkett,


See also

* Knott family of lighthouse keepers {{Marilyns N Eng Fells of the Lake District Hewitts of England Marilyns of England Nuttalls Caldbeck