Randygill Top from Wath via Bowderdale

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Saunterings: Walking in North-West England

Saunterings is a set of reflections based upon walks around the counties of Cumbria, Lancashire and North Yorkshire in North-West England (as defined in the Preamble). Here is a list of all Saunterings so far. Guaranteed ad-free, AI-free and free!

258. Randygill Top from Wath via Bowderdale

Bowderdale, with, from left to right, Hooksey, Randygill Top and Yarlside (photo taken on an earlier occasion)

There are about 60 named hills on the OS OL19 map of the Howgill Fells. I say ‘about’ because some of the names are attached to slopes or ridges where there is a barely perceptible rise and therefore hardly a hill. In fact, of those 60 or so names only 21 are associated with a drop of over 30 metres, which is the usual criterion for considering a rise to be a bona-fide, independent hill. Most of the rest have a drop of less than 10 metres. I have included a list of the named rises at the end of this document.

Since all the rises are packed within the 30 or so square miles of the Howgills open access area, it follows that much of the walking on the Howgills is along ridges, up and over gentle rises. Even the bona-fide hills do not require any unseemly scrambling to get to the top. As there are few exposed rocks and little heather the Howgill Fells are a place for a long, airy, grassy tramp.

I suppose locals had to invent names for every little hump because there are so few distinguishing features on the Howgills by which a location may be described. If you deleted all the names from the Howgills map then there would be little left but the contour lines. With so few features to help in the naming, the locals needed to be creative. Occasionally, inspiration failed them – there are, for example, three Knotts, one in each corner of the Howgills triangle. Overall, though, I am impressed with their imaginative concoctions. If you asked me to come up with new names for 60 hills then I would never generate anything as whimsical as, say, Hooksey, Randygill Top, Kensgriff and Yarlside.

These four hills all lie on the ridge to the east of Bowderdale in the northern Howgills (shown in the photo above). They have drops of 68, 131, 66 and 208 metres, respectively, and so this is a very undulating ridge by Howgill standards. I set out to walk along some of this ridge from the hamlet of Wath. The letters ‘wath’ are a common part of place names hereabouts, being from the Norse word for a ford. Here the name is simply Wath.

I headed first for the hamlet of Bowderdale and then took the track up to the dale of that name. At the end of the walled pastures the path forks, one path heading for West Fell on the western ridge of Bowderdale and the other heading into Bowderdale itself. Bowderdale Beck runs straight (apart from meanders) south to north for five miles, enclosed within high ridges. Anyone walking alone into Bowderdale will have to be content with their own thoughts as there is little there to provoke any others.

The path into Bowderdale

The path stays on a contour and therefore as I walked along the valley I became gradually nearer the beck. It was silent, apart from the occasional baa. The only thing that caught my eye were the extensive examples of post-Ice Age gully erosion and alluvial fan sedimentation. I understand that the Howgills provide an excellent case study for geology students in this regard.

It was my intention to walk up Randygill Top from Bowderdale and it was therefore necessary to know which of the high hills to the east was indeed Randygill Top. To this end, I keep my eye out for two old sheepfolds, the only man-made structures to be seen in the valley. They are so derelict that they may not serve as place-markers for much longer.

Anyway, confident that I had located the base of Randygill Top (and reassured by the familiar shape of the higher Yarlside just ahead), I set out to climb it. First, I had to cross Bowderdale Beck. It had more water than I had expected, and so it was a barefoot paddle across, quite pleasurable really.

Bowderdale Beck

And then it was, for me, a long slog to the top (624 metres). The sheep that frequent these hills prefer to walk horizontally around them and therefore create stripes across the hillside. I’m not sure whether they are a help or a hindrance to someone wanting to walk up the slope. As I struggled up, nose to grass, I noticed that there was plenty of bilberry, bonsai-high, thanks to the sheep and fell ponies. If rewilders have their way, and the sheep and ponies are banished, these slopes will turn a luxuriant shade of bilberry green, before shrubs and trees take over. I pressed on, pausing often to admire the prototypical, elemental dale, now within the Yorkshire Dales and surely within the Westmorland Dales too [252].

Looking north down Bowderdale from the slopes of Randygill Top (the path I followed can be seen on the opposite bank)

Looking south from the slopes of Randygill Top, Whernside and Ingleborough in the far distance, Kensgriff and Yarlside behind the sheep

The steepness gradually lessened and I eventually reached the top, where there is only a jumble of stones to mark the spot. I sat with my sandwiches for a leisurely break. Time seems irrelevant up here. The hills don't change, although occasionally patches would be set aglow as the sun managed to pierce the low, dark clouds that hovered just above the hills.

Randygill Top is higher than all Howgill hills except some to the south. There are therefore extensive uninterrupted views to the west, north and east. The Lakeland panorama from Black Combe to Blencathra was in view although rather distant, of course, and, on this occasion, grey under cloud. Then there’s the northern Pennines around Cross Fell and the Dales hills of Wild Boar Fell, Whernside and Ingleborough. Nearer, there are the swelling humps of many of those Howgill hills I mentioned.

From Randygill Top, looking towards the Lake District

I was reluctant to leave the top, not least because although I could see my next objective, Hooksey (586 metres), to the north, looking somewhat diminutive, I knew that to get there I would have to lose more height than I would prefer by dropping down to the col of Leathgill Bridge (a natural saddle at about 520 metres) before being able to walk up it. But it had to be done – and it was. Actually, Leathgill Bridge is a rather splendid location, between two hills to the north and south and between two fine dales to the west and east, all velvety smooth.

Dropping down to Leathgill Bridge, Hooksey ahead and the valley of Weasdale to the right

There is no clear top to Hooksey although a few stones pretend otherwise. For some reason, the name of Hooksey is placed on the map nearly a mile north of its highest point. From the top it was a long but gentle decline, passing a few ink-black pools, all the way to the hamlet of Weasdale. Here the acclaimed Weasdale Nurseries, said to be the highest in the country and therefore a specialist in hardy plants, has recently closed, the family that had run the business since 1950 being unable to find anyone able to take it over.

The path down from Hooksey

As I have previously experienced, the footpath from Weasdale to Gars was troublesome, this time with many inquisitive bullocks and bulls. I was too tired to discuss the matter with them, so I trespassed over some quieter fields. I preferred to reflect on my hours in the dales and on the fells, hours when I saw nobody at all anywhere. It is over ten years since I last walked up Randygill Top and nothing has changed – except that the distances and the heights seem to have doubled.

Here is the promised
List of the Howgill hills
(from north to south, west to east, with the right-hand column indicating a visit to the hill, the number being a link to a Sauntering up it and a + indicating a pre-Sauntering visit):

                   Ht Drop Grid ref	
Round Hill        280    1  NY6904
Roger Howe        315    5  NY6103   +
Gelstone Hill     333    3  NY6203
Weather Hill      345    5  NY6303   +
Peatmire Hill     280    1  NY6403   +
Pinskey           291    3  NY6903
Powson Knott      374    4  NY6102 154
Knott             391    6  NY6302   +
West Fell         542   45  NY6602   +
Hooksey           586   68  NY6802 258
High Knott        402    3  NY6902
Stwarth           435    7  NY6902   +
Hare Shaw         472   13  NY6201 154
Archer Hill       465   13  NY6301
Rispa Pike        474   17  NY6301   +
Middleton         490   17  NY6501   +
Langdale Knott    477   36  NY6501   +
Hunthoof Pike     524    3  NY6902
Green Bell        605   48  NY6901   +
Knoutberry        530   12  NY7001   +
Knott             465   11  NY7101
Blirt Hill        371    1  NY7201
Blease Fell       474   57  NY6200 154
Uldale Head       532  130  NY6300   +
Hand Lake         500   41  NY6400   +
Randygill Top     624  131  NY6800 258
Stockless         568   13  NY6900   +
Spengill Head     595    6  NY6900   +
Grere Fell        544   18  NY7000   +
Adamthwaite Bank  481   15  NY7100   +
Harter Fell       521  120  NY7200   +
Over Sale         529   18  SD6599   +
Docker Knott      530   21  SD6599   +
Taffergill Hill   551   11  SD6599
Bleagill Head     590    5  SD6599
Simon's Seat      587   83  SD6599   +
Hazelgill Knott   578   42  SD6799   +
Kensgriff         574   66  SD6899   +
Wandale Hill      497  111  SD7099   +
Linghaw           499   35  SD6398   +
Fell Head         640   86  SD6498   +
Breaks Head       638    4  SD6598   +
Wind Scarth       631    5  SD6598   +
Bush Howe         623   18  SD6598   +
Cobles            534    5  SD6698
Yarlside          639  208  SD6898   +
Whin's End        398    3  SD6397  68
White Fell Head   641    7  SD6497   +
The Calf          676  383  SD6697  15
Ben End           596    2  SD6997
Castley Knott     361   23  SD6496  68
Brown Moor        412   35  SD6496  68
Bram Rigg Top     672   15  SD6696   +
Calders           675   34  SD6796  15
Little Dummacks   660    2  SD6796  15
Great Dummacks    663    5  SD6796   +
Seat Knott        342   14  SD6495
Arant Haw         605   57  SD6694  67
Sickers Fell      498    8  SD6794
Knott             429   13  SD6794
Winder            473   32  SD6593  67
Crook             460    7  SD6693   +

     Date: September 9th 2026
     Start: NY687051, on the side road from the A685 to Wath (Map: OL19)
     Route: S, SW – Bowderdale Foot – S, SW – end of pastures – S along Bowderdale – west of Randygill Top – E – Randygill Top – N – Hooksey – N, NE – Weasdale – N – A685 – W – Wath
     Distance: 9 miles;    Ascent: 450 metres
     964 +458 /2400

The two preceding items:
      257.   Himalayan Balsam on the Wyre Way
      256.   Cartmel Hospitality and the Hampsfell Hospice
Two nearby items:
      232.   The Scotch Argus of Smardale
      203.   Orchids and Bogbeans at Sunbiggin
A list of all items so far:
                Saunterings

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Top photo: Rainbow over Kisdon in Swaledale; Bottom photo: Ullswater