Talk:List of Marilyns in Wales

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[edit] Maesglase grid reference

I have just reverted a change in grid reference for Maesglase. The Ordnance Survey 1:25k maps show two closed 670 m contours on the top of this hill — Maen Du at SH823152 with a 674 m spot height, and Craig Rhiw-erch at SH817150 with no spot height. The original Relative Hills of Britain book gave Maen Du as the summit (though it quoted a height of 675 m); a subsequent erata changed this to Craig Rhiw-erch, attributing it a height of c 676 m, and this seems to be generally accepted as the higher point. (For example, whilst the first edition of the Nuttall's The Mountains of England & Wales - Volume 1: Wales gave Maen Du as the summit, the second edition gave Craig Rhiw-erch. This noted on their website.)

The recent edit by Mrs Trellis gave the summit a grid reference of SH825148. So far as I can see, this is a point at about 630 m down the south-east flank of Maesglase, and does not correspond to any top I've ever seen quoted. If this wasn't a simple typo, can we have a reference to back this up? — ras52 11:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess it all depends on how Maesglase is defined. I agree that the summit of Maen Du is at SH 822 151 but all the OS maps represent Maesglase as the main ridge bearing nothwards and the crest bearing east-west but with the summit at Maen Du. So is this peak really Maen-du ? and if not where should the peak of Maesglase be defined? I took a view refering to the 1:10000 OS maps but would be happy to accept an alternative view of fixing the peak of Maen Du and Maesgalse at one and the same point. Mrs Trellis 19:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I'm following you. I agree that the top of Maen Du is at SH822151 or SH823152 (I'm certainly not going to quibble about a <100 m difference; both grid references are in use). Do we also agree that the highest point on this hill (whether or not we call the hill Maesglase) is whichever is the taller of Maen Du and Craig Rhiw-erch? I'm not qualified to comment on the methodology of the recent surveys that suggest Craig Rhiw-erch is the taller, but as I've not seen any surveys (new or old) suggesting the contrary, I'm prepared to accept that it is.

On this page (a list of Marilyns — i.e. 150 m prominences), the point listed should therefore be Craig Rhiw-erch, c 676 m at SH817150. As to what it's called, in The Relative Hills of Britain, the Maes Du summit coordinates are given with the name Maesglase; in the 2006 erata, the name Maesglase is retained, but with the Craig Rhiw-erch summit coordinates. On the OS 1:50k maps, the label Maesglase is south of the two tops and stretches from west of Craig Rhiw-erch (which is unlabeled) to east of Maen Du, and seems unambiguously to refer to the whole hill. On the 1:25k maps, the label Maesglase is south-east of Maen Du, but is in a larger font than both Craig Rhiw-erch and Maen Du which suggests to me that it refers to the whole hill. Even if Maesglase does properly refer to some specific feature on the south-eastern flank, it is clearly in current use to refer to the hill as a whole (c.f. the Nuttalls' book, the Relative Hills of Britain, the TACit tables of Hewitts).

Finally, there's the fact that the SH825148 grid reference is inconsistent with the other data given for the hill, both on this page and over on the Maesglase page. If this is the grid reference, then the hill's height is c 630 m, its prominence is <10 m (there is no contour ring shown on any map), and the descriptions (such as intensively forested to on the western slopes) are not true. So I propose to leave this list with the name Maesglase and with Craig Rhiw-erch's grid reference, and to edit the Maesglase page to reflect the fact that Craig Rhiw-erch and Maen Du are two of the summits and Maesglase is the whole hill. — ras52 12:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes & References

I've added a few notes to the table clarifying a few inconsistencies between this list and the one in the The Relative Hills of Britain book. I'm not particularly happy with the formatting though, and I'm hoping someone might have some ideas on how to improve it. Personally, I prefer to keep notes separate from references, but this means that only one can use the <ref>-style footnotes. I've used the deprecated {{fn}} templates for the others, but this has several problems — first, the footnotes are not automatically numbered; second, the back links don't properly work with multiple forward links; and perhaps worst, the multiple forward links prevent the wiki page from validating as HTML. Any thoughts? — ras52 13:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)