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610 m · Birkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit) · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses, my hikes and live summit weather.

Birkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)Birkett top

Brown Crag

Brown Crag at 610m (2,001ft) is a Birkett top on the broad moorland between Ullswater and the Helvellyn range, its open summit giving views east over the Pennines and across the peaceful Eamont valley.

610 m
Height
+7
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →

Home › Fells › Brown Crag

Written and walked by Lee McCoy

610 mBirkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)+7 bonus Birketts within 3 km

Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast

Modelled guidance for the 610 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Sat 12 Sep): 14° to 7°C, gusts to 44 mph, 15.4 mm of rain forecast.

Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
14° / 7°
💨 44 mph
🌧 15.4 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
🌦️
14° / 9°
💨 16 mph
🌧 0.1 mm (12%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌦️
15° / 12°
💨 36 mph
🌧 3.5 mm (100%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌧️
14° / 9°
💨 37 mph
🌧 10.6 mm (98%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
10° / 8°
💨 27 mph
🌧 4.1 mm (54%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌧️
10° / 8°
💨 35 mph
🌧 16.8 mm (97%)
Fri 18 Sep
🌧️
11° / 8°
💨 37 mph
🌧 13.8 mm (92%)

Forecast snapshot from 12 Sep 2026, 18:50 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 610 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.

Pro mountain forecasts: MWIS · Met Office mountain forecast

Brown Crag at a glance

Brown Crag

Brown Crag at 610m (2,001ft) is a Birkett top on the broad moorland between Ullswater and the Helvellyn range, its open summit giving views east over the Pennines and across the peaceful Eamont valley. Part of the high ground above Matterdale, rarely visited in its own right. The approach from Dockray gives a pleasant moorland walk.

Routes up Brown Crag

Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.

Brown Crag and Raise
10.6 km · ~3.4 hr
Three tops on the western flank of the Helvellyn range, Brown Crag through White Side to Raise. 749 m of ascent in 10.6 km with one stage at 15%. Navigation is only moderate here, the paths being clear enough, but exposure is rated hard once you are on the ridge. Roughly 3.4 hours.

Classifications & hill data

Birkett
Synge
610 m
Height
2,001 ft
In feet
NY 3275 1764
Grid ref

The short answers

Is Brown Crag a Wainwright?

Brown Crag is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.

Where do you park for Brown Crag?

The nearest car park we hold is Brown Crag car park, about 1.2 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Swirls, Thirlmere (paid), 1.3 km out. We only look within 2.5 km, measured straight-line: over longer distances a road may cross a pass and the drive bears no relation to the line.

How hard is Brown Crag?

The shortest way up we hold is Brown Crag and Raise — 10.6 km, 749 m of ascent, about 3.4 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.

All axes: steepness: Severe · exposure: Hard · length: Moderate · navigation: Moderate · terrain: Moderate.

My hikes over Brown Crag (Strava)

1 logged hike pass over this summit:

Interactive route maps and photos load here for visitors with JavaScript. Data from Strava.

Parking & buses for Brown Crag

Best parking to hike Brown Crag

Where we have the data, each parking spot also shows the nearest public toilets and facilities (cafés, pubs, shops).

Brown Crag car park — 1.2 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Helvellyn, Helvellyn Lower Man, White Side and Nethermost Pike — the 'Helvellyn from Swirls: the walkers’ way up' route starts 479 m away. Also serves 'Helvellyn & Nethermost Pike via Seat Sandal'. Fee not verified — check signage on arrival.
Directions Something changed here?
Swirls, Thirlmere (paid) — 1.3 km from summit (straight line)
The standard west-side route up Helvellyn via Browncove Crags. Fees: pay and display; coins and cards (Lake District National Park car-parks directory, checked Aug 2026). Pay and display (visitlakedistrict.com); named as a UU Thirlmere car park on unitedutilities.com, which states no fee details (United Utilities, checked Aug 2026).
Directions Something changed here?
If it is full: Armboth, Thirlmere (United Utilities, paid) (1.2 km); Legburthwaite (United Utilities, small) (2.7 km); Dob Gill, Thirlmere (United Utilities, paid) (2.9 km)
🚺 The Swirls Car Park (~49 m straight line) — Free · Accessible · RADAR key🚺 Armbroth Car Park (~1202 m straight line) — Free
Station Coppice, Thirlmere (LDNPA, paid) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
A small Authority car park on the A591 at Thirlmere, just north of the larger Swirls car park and separate from it. 18 spaces. Fees: pay and display; charges apply 9am-6pm every day including Sundays and bank holidays (visitlakedistrict.com, checked Aug 2026).
Directions Something changed here?
Fisher Crag car park (paid) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Helvellyn, Helvellyn Lower Man, White Side and Nethermost Pike — the 'Helvellyn from Swirls: the walkers’ way up' route starts 36 m away. Also serves 'Helvellyn & Nethermost Pike via Seat Sandal'. Paid parking (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Roadside parking for Great How (free) — 1.6 km from summit (straight line)
0.5 km from Great How. Added from the 5 Aug 2026 OSM candidate review.
Directions Something changed here?

Positions are approximate — zoom the map to confirm. Lakeland car parks fill before 9am on fine weekends.

Tip: pan and zoom the interactive map at the top of this page to spot other potential parking near your route.

Vehicles are left entirely at their owner’s risk. We list places people park; we cannot vouch for any of them. Judge it on the day: take valuables with you, leave nothing on show, and if a spot feels wrong when you get there, park somewhere else.

Getting to Brown Crag by bus

The 555 stops at Stanah Dam road end (near), 290 m from the start of Brown Crag and Raise. Last bus: Monday to Friday 21:35 towards Ambleside (555) and 20:35 towards Windermere (555) and 18:12 towards Kendal (555); Saturday 21:35 towards Ambleside (555) and 20:35 towards Windermere (555) and 18:12 towards Kendal (555); Sunday 19:42 towards Windermere (555) and 18:12 towards Kendal (555). Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.

Stagecoach 555
Kendal – Staveley – Windermere – Ambleside – Rydal – Grasmere – Thirlmere (Wythburn & Swirls) – Keswick
Catch it from: Windermere · Ambleside
Year-round, roughly hourly. The backbone bus of the A591 — ideal for Helvellyn (Wythburn/Swirls), Fairfield, the Central fells and anything around Grasmere/Rydal. From Penrith, take the X4/X5 to Keswick and change.

Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

Hazards on Brown Crag

No hazard card for this fell. The usual open-fell rules apply: check the forecast, carry a map and compass, and turn back in cloud if the ground is not what you expected.

Map & nearby Birketts

Free mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.

Nearest parking: Brown Crag car park, about 1.2 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Brown Crag (within 3 km)

These Birkett tops are not Wainwright summits — detour to them on this walk and they are pure profit. Distances are straight-line; allow extra for terrain.

1.7 km NWGreat How (Thirlmere)333 m · Central
2.1 km NNWCastle Rock339 m · Eastern
2.3 km SSEHelvellyn Lower Man924 m · Eastern
2.6 km WSWFisher Crag421 m · Central
2.7 km ENEGreen Side (White Stones)794 m · Eastern
2.8 km NNWWren Crag311 m · Central
2.9 km NNELittle Dodd (St John's Common)785 m · Eastern

Routes over Brown Crag

Brown Crag and RaisePlanned
10.64 km · ~749 m ascent · loop · ~3–4.5 h
Summits: Brown CragWhite SideRaise

⬇️ Download GPX

Full route guide ↗

✎️ Planned route — drawn but not personally walked or checked yet.

A planned line is a suggestion, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate independently and carry a map & compass. How to use this guide.

On the hill: terrain and water on Brown Crag

Terrain & access

A near-path top (about 610 m): a mapped path comes within about 67 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 9 m of ascent, up to ~11°). The summit is on CRoW open access land.

Computed from open data, not walked — pathless ground needs confident navigation, and mapped paths, barriers and access boundaries can be incomplete. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors (via Overpass); Natural England CRoW Access Land; DoBIH; Copernicus GLO-30. See the terrain & access report for how this is worked out across all 144 fells.

Water & shelter on the way up

On the Brown Crag and Raise route:

🛖 map (78 m)🚌 Thirlmere Dam Road End (219 m)

On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.

Places to stay near this fell

Fornside Farm Cottages guest house

about 1.1 km from the start, in a straight line

Ranked first on usefulness, not distance. It answers more of a walking family's questions than anything else in the valley: four separate self-catering units sleeping 4 or 6, an EV charger, dogs in two of the four, a private farm trail, and walks from the door onto the Helvellyn range the three routes climb. It is also 1.12 km from the start, so the tiebreak never had to be used.

The four cottages are converted 17th-century barns adjoining a grade II listed farmhouse, heated by a ground source heat pump part-powered by solar panels — and there is a private farm trail through the woods and fields for guests.

  • Family rooms “Rigg Barn was converted from a detached bank barn and sleeps up to six people.”
  • Parking “You can charge your electric vehicle on our PodPoint car charger, available exclusively for our guests.”
  • Children “We have just returned from a week in Swaledale Garth with our toddler.”

Dale Head Hall Lakeside Hotel hotel

about 2.1 km from the start, in a straight line

The only serviced hotel inside two and a half kilometres of the start, and the only property in the cluster offering rooms on the ground floor — which matters to anyone who has just come down Sticks Pass on tired knees, and to a family who would rather not carry a sleeping child upstairs. Several rooms are explicitly convertible to family use with extra single beds.

A 16th-century hall standing alone on the shore of Thirlmere inside a designated red squirrel reserve, with Helvellyn directly behind it; the site publishes its front door as the what3words location CRACKS.DIAMOND.RESPECTED.

  • Family rooms “A warm, traditionally designed family room, with one double and two single beds. Overlooking the back of the hotel.”
  • Evening meal “Why not enjoy a trip out to nearby Keswick for the day before coming back and enjoying a delicious bar meal.”
  • Children “This room can accommodate two extra single beds for a family.”

What each place says about itself, quoted from their own site. We have not stayed at any of them, and there are no prices, no booking and no affiliate links. Distances are straight lines from each route start, never walking times. Properties found via OpenStreetMap.

Other fells near Brown Crag