Pen-y-ghent

Pen-y-ghent is a fell in the Yorkshire Dales. It is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, the other two being Ingleborough and Whernside. It lies some 3 km east of Horton in Ribblesdale. The Pennine Way links the summit to the village; the route is around 5 km in length as the Way curves initially to the north before turning east to reach the summit.

The more direct route that traverses the southern 'nose' of the hill is the route usually taken by the those attempting The Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge, as the walk is usually (but not exclusively) done in an anti-clockwise direction starting/finishing in Horton in Ribblesdale. The other main hillwalking route on the hill heads north from the summit to reach Plover hill before descending to join the bridleway that is Foxup Road.

In the Cumbric language 'Pen' presumably meant hill or head, but 'ghent' is more obscure. It could be taken to be edge or border.^[1] The name "Pen-y-ghent" could therefore mean Hill on the border.^[2] Alternatively, it could be mean 'wind' or 'winds' - from the closest Welsh language translation as 'gwynt'. Thus it might mean simply 'Head of the Winds'. It is also acceptable to write it as Pen y Ghent rather than Pen-y-Ghent.

References

Bibliography

• Bibby, Andrew (2008), The Backbone of England, London: Francis Lincoln Limited
• Ekwall, Eilert (1960), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press

External links

• Computer generated summit panoramas Pen-y-ghent index
• Photos of Pen-y-ghent and surrounding area on geograph.org.uk
• Climb Pen-y-ghent from Horton-in-Ribblesdale

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