Sunday 17th March 2019
Knott (Gt. Asby) NY 647 092 - 412m
Meals Meaburn Moor NY 639 152 - 292m
Over the years I have dallied with Ordnance Survey triangulation points. For readers from abroad these are concrete pillars used by our mapping quango to mount surveying equipment enabling mapping of the whole of the UK - there are 6,500 of them, so for me this is a good list because the number means I have no likelihood of completing them all and can just cherry pick and avoid the stress of compulsive list ticking.
OS maps are divided into numbered sheets. In the past I have visited all the trigs on Sheet 97 (Kendal and Morecambe) and Sheet 98 (Wensleydale and Upper Wharfedale) - there are usually forty or fifty on each map sheet.
Some years ago I had made a start on Sheet 91 (Appleby-in-Westmorland) and visited 16 of the 48. I have for the moment resumed this campaign and visited two more yesterday bringing my total to 18.
Trigs have to be in a prominent position to enable a view of two more trigs to measure the angles of elevation and horizontal plane for completion of each triangle. The majority are therefore situated on high points but there are also many on low lying terrain, often only a short distance from a road, so it can be feasible to visit several trigs in one outing.
If you want to know more THIS SITE is worth s visit.
This resumption was conceived on a whim as I breakfasted and looked out at a tempting weather window. I had other things to do but I reckoned I could be there and back in time for at least some of my chores.
This was all glorious limestone hill country as good as it gets and it was invigorating to get back amongst some hills after much recent rural country walking. Knott was only a short climb and I decided to put off my chores and drive the few miles north of Orton to bag the second one which was only a short walk from the road. That gave me a little bonus. Ordnance Survey, having finished using trig points offered members of the public the opportunity to "adopt a trig" - that has since been discontinued, and I have only seen one or two of these, but Maulds Meaburn was one such. The adopter was one William Dodds - "On the occasion of his retirement - May 1994." Despite time Internet searching I could glean nothing about William. If anybody knows more I would be interested to hear.
After allowing my Panasonic TZ100 to ingest mud I made an insurance claim and then bought a new TZ80 which only has the smaller sensor but with the advantages of a 30 x zoom and a proper viewfinder. Today was my first chance to give this a try so I took many photos.
WORTH CLICKING FIRST PHOTO TO SEE SLIDESHOW FULL SCREEN
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| Just off from the road - we have had much rain recently. Knott is the obvious hill - the trig is quite a long way back from a cairn that can be seen from this location |
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| Lime kiln. There are many in these limestone dales |
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| Typical limestone escarpment |
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| This and below - zooms into the northern end of The Howgills |
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| Knott summit and trig |
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| Just a few yards from Knott trig - perfection |
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| On the way to Maulds Meaburn trig, only a couple of hundred yards from the road |
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| East from Maulds Meaburn trig - northern pennines in the distance |
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| "This trig pillar was adopted by William Dodds on the occasion of his retirement - May 1994" |
It was only after my return from this outing that I realised I had been covering some of exactly the same ground as Alan R described on his post only a few days ago:
ReplyDeletehttps://alanrayneroutdoors.blogspot.com/2019/03/great-asby-limestone-pavement-cairns.html?ext-ref=comm-sub-email
That must have been a very satisfying spur of the moment walk in what has been otherwise fairly depressing weather.
ReplyDeleteAs a bonus it looked an interesting limestone area of the beaten track.
Well done.
BC - There are some quite remote and interesting ones still left to do. They all demand a fair bit of driving, but more than one can often be done at once.
ReplyDeleteLove seeing trig points on my walks. Hope they remain forever, as monuments to earlier map-makers. Love the photos, Conrad. You must be pleased with the new camera.
ReplyDeleteRuth - thanks for your comment. How's the grandparenting going.? Have you a date for resumption of your walk yet?
ReplyDeleteWe visited the same trig point and covered a few of the same blades of grass but you went one way and me the other. Good pics Conrad.
ReplyDeleteAlan R - Not quite follow my leader. It might have been my subconscious taking me there after reading your post, but I don't think so. It was my decision to re-embark on my OS Sheet 91 mission, and this trig was the nearest unvisited one to home to get me going again. Whatever, it is brilliant walking area.
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