Powys mountain downgraded to hill after measurement shock
It has startling similarities to the Hugh Grant film about a mountain that was declared to be a hill.
Fan y Big in Powys used to be known as a mountain by all who knew it.
But that was until enthusiast Myrddyn Phillips got his measuring tools out, and proved it is actually a hill.
The story has similarities to the film The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain, which was filmed near Lake Vyrnwy.
In that 1995 film, Grant’s character proves a mountain that dominates a fictional Welsh village should be downgraded, much to the fury of locals who promptly add an earth mound to the top to reinstate it as a mountain.
Fan y Big, in the Brecon Beacons, missed its mountain mark by just 4.9ft.
That means it has been taken off the Hewitts list, which records mountains in England, Wales or Ireland over 2,000ft.
It is over 2,000ft tall and high enough to be classed as a mountain. But mountains must also have a minimum drop between the summit and the col – the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks – of 98.4ft.
Mr Phillips, 57, from Welshpool, discovered Fan y Big’s drop was only 93.5ft when he measured it with satellite-based technology.
He also calculated the summit as being at 2,351ft, lower than the previously thought 2,359ft.
He said: “To an extent it is a shame because it is a stunning hill on one of the best ridge walks in the whole of Wales.”
The mountain surveyor has been measuring mountains for nearly 20 years as a hobby and said he wanted to measure Fan y Big because it was thought of as a marginal hill.
He uses a satellite receiver which picks up a satellite signal and processes its position against Ordnance Survey base stations.
“The technology is so accurate, it collects hundreds of data points to get a good average,” Mr Phillips said. “It’s the same sort of technology used by GPS.”
Previously mountains heights were recorded by a process called photogrammetry. This involved flying over the top and taking measurements to the land below.
Mr Phillips claimed his technology has a margin of error of just 4in compared to the older process which had a margin of up to 9.8ft.
Alan Dawson, the author of the Hewitts list of mountains, said the result of the survey was “expected” and Fan y Big has been removed from the list.
“It was confirmation of what we long suspected,” he said. “In this field of study almost two metres is a huge difference.”
