Lake District Trig Points

The tops of many hills in Great Britain are marked by trig points erected by Ordnance Survey and they make a welcome, and literal, high point to your walk. Although long since becoming redundant as far as Ordnance Survey are concerned as they've been overtaken by aerial photography and GPS the network of trig points was used to re-survey Britain back in 1936 when it became clear that Ordnance Survey needed more accurate mapping than they had before.

The majority of trig points around Britain are pretty dull things. Grey concrete pillars like this one on High Street.

Here in the Lakes though Ordnance Survey seem to have preferred to use local stone to construct their trig points. So you get ones like this lovely one on Lank Rigg where the stone have been carefully picked to produce a perfect pillar with very little cement being needed.

Why they did this we're not sure. It's possible it was an aesthetic thing, but if so how do we explain High Street? More likely it was simply easier to make them this way: less materials to carry up the hill at a time when powered vehicles capable of making these sort of ascents were in their infancy and they were still more likely to be using pack horses.

Whatever the reason we're left with some good looking trig points in some great locations. Here's some of our favourites with some fine views:

Red Screes

The Old Man of Coniston

Little Mell Fell

... and of course ...

Helvellyn

Tagged: walks

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