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552 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

Common Fell

Common Fell (552 m / 1,811 ft) is a Birkett (one of the 541 tops in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells), one of the lesser-known Eastern tops.

552 m
Height
+10
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →
552 mBirkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)+10 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 552 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Sat 12 Sep): 14° to 8°C, gusts to 43 mph, 12.5 mm of rain forecast.

Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
14° / 8°
💨 43 mph
🌧 12.5 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
☁️
14° / 10°
💨 19 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (12%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌦️
16° / 12°
💨 36 mph
🌧 2.6 mm (100%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌦️
15° / 9°
💨 35 mph
🌧 5.0 mm (98%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
12° / 8°
💨 27 mph
🌧 1.3 mm (54%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌦️
11° / 8°
💨 34 mph
🌧 9.3 mm (97%)
Fri 18 Sep
🌦️
12° / 8°
💨 35 mph
🌧 10.2 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 552 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.

Common Fell at a glance

Common Fell

Common Fell (552 m / 1,811 ft) is a Birkett (one of the 541 tops in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells), one of the lesser-known Eastern tops. It rises the Matterdale. The name combines common (Middle English commun, common grazing land), and fell (Old Norse fjall, a mountain or hill). It also features on the Synge list. Its nearest tops are Swineside Knott (0.8 km SW); Round How (1.0 km E); Brown Hills (1.2 km SW) — it's usually taken in on a round of these neighbours. It's a worthwhile objective for anyone working through the Birkett list, or as a short extension to a bigger day on the higher neighbouring fells.

Routes up Common Fell

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

Classifications & hill data

Birkett
Synge
552 m
Height
1,811 ft
In feet
NY 3823 2046
Grid ref

The short answers

Is Common Fell a Wainwright?

Common Fell is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.

Where do you park for Common Fell?

The nearest car park we hold is Dockray (roadside), about 1.3 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Round How (layby), 1.4 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 Common Fell?

The shortest way up we hold is Swineside Knott & Gowbarrow — 13.3 km, 649 m of ascent, about 3.7 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Hard.

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

Parking & buses for Common Fell

Best parking to hike Common Fell

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

Dockray (roadside) — 1.3 km from summit (straight line)
Verge parking for the Dodds and Matterdale Common.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Round How (layby) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Gowbarrow Fell (Wainwright summit) and Little Mell Fell — the 'Gowbarrow Fell and Little Mell Fell' route starts 394 m away. Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Low How, north-east (layby) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Hart Side, Green Side (White Stones - Green Side), Stybarrow Dodd and Raise — the 'Hart Side, Stybarrow Dodd, Raise, Watson's Dodd and more' route starts 32 m away. Free (OSM-tagged). Unpaved surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Low How (layby) — 1.5 km from summit (straight line)
0.7 km from Low How. Seen full by about 08:00 on a Saturday - Lee's own visit; a single sighting rather than a pattern.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Swineside Knott (layby) — 1.5 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Swineside Knott (1.1 km), Brown Hills (1.1 km), Common Fell (1.5 km). Paid parking (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)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 Common Fell by bus

The 508 stops at Matterdale, opposite Aira Force, 170 m from the start of Swineside Knott & Gowbarrow — a route we rate Moderate. The last bus is 18:02 towards Penrith (508) and 17:15 towards Martindale (UB1) and 15:15 towards Lowther (UB2), every day. Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.

Stagecoach 508 “Ullswater Bus”
Penrith – Pooley Bridge – Aira Force – Glenridding – Patterdale (summer services continue over Kirkstone Pass to Troutbeck and Windermere)
Catch it from: Penrith · Windermere (summer only)
The key route from Penrith for the Eastern and Far Eastern fells: Helvellyn from Glenridding, Place Fell, the Hartsop fells. The summer Kirkstone extension drops you at the pass for Red Screes and Caudale Moor.

Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

Hazards on Common Fell

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: Dockray (roadside), about 1.3 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Common Fell (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.

0.8 km SSWSwineside Knott553 m · Eastern
1.0 km ENERound How387 m · Eastern
1.2 km SSWBrown Hills551 m · Eastern
1.2 km ENEBracken How373 m · Eastern
1.3 km NWLow How497 m · Eastern
1.7 km WNWHigh Brow575 m · Eastern
1.9 km WSWBirkett Fell725 m · Eastern
2.7 km EGreen Hill - Gowbarrow Park439 m · Eastern
2.8 km SSWHeron Pike (Glenridding)612 m · Eastern
3.0 km SEBirk Fell (Bleaberry Knott)512 m · Far Eastern

Routes over Common Fell

13.27 km · ~649 m ascent · loop · ~3.5–5 h · Moderate

⬇️ Download GPX

Best season: Any season in good visibility — this is a route for the views, so pick a clear day. The higher moorland can be wet and rough underfoot.

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 Common Fell

Water & shelter on the way up

💧 Treat water from the fell before you drink it. A mapped point is usually a tap or public supply, but never drink untreated from a beck, stream or tarn — even clear-looking hill water can carry giardia or cryptosporidium from livestock or a carcass upstream and leave you seriously ill. Run it through a filter or purifier (a LifeStraw, Sawyer Squeeze or HydraPak) or bring it to a rolling boil first.

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

Places to stay near this fell

Lowthwaite Bed and Breakfast (opens in new tab) guest house

about 3.9 km from the start, in a straight line

The only property in the cluster that answers the whole arrival sequence for a family: a drying room in the all-rooms facilities list, a cot and a high chair, children of all ages accepted, and an honest note that its ground-floor room is still reached by steps. It is also the only page in the radius that describes this exact walk from its own door - Gowbarrow Fell to Aira Force and back through Matterdale - and Little Mell Fell, the second summit of one of the routes this start serves, is the fell behind the house.

Most of the furniture in the rooms was made by hand in Tanzania, where the owners used to run a business organising Kilimanjaro climbs.

  • Drying room “The following are available for all rooms: Television,DVD player, Hairdryer, Tea/Coffee making facilities, Use of garden and patio, Use of guidebooks and other books, Maps (for planning and laminated for walks), Drying room, and Fridge (in the Dining Room).”
  • Family rooms “We have a cot, high chair(s) and special cutlery for small children.”
  • Parking “Another alternative is to use what3words where our car park is primed.lavished.amounting”
  • Children “Children Welcome We are very happy to welcome children of all ages.”

Low Gale (opens in new tab) self-catering

about 4.4 km from the start, in a straight line

The best answer in the cluster for a party with a dog, a small child and tired knees at once: single storey, sleeps seven, cot available, off-road parking, drying facilities and a coin laundry, with hot food available from the hotel kitchen so nobody has to drive at seven in the evening. The price of all that is a three-night minimum with fixed Friday and Monday changeover, which is why the minimum-stay line matters more here than anywhere else in this list.

The Ullswater Steamer jetty at Howtown is reached from the cottage by footpath, so the lake boat can be walked to rather than driven to.

  • Drying room “Ample storage and drying facilites Very spacious, comfortable lounge Fully fitted dining kitchen”
  • Dogs “Low Gale Ullswater is an elevated single storey, dog friendly holiday cottage located just beside Fusedale Beck and can easily accomodate 7 people.”
  • Family rooms “Cot available Dishwasher *Washing Machine 2 bathrooms 1 double bedroom 2 twin rooms 1 single room”
  • Evening meal “visitors can cook local fayre or alternatively take advantage of the dine at home meals available from the Hotel kitchen.”
  • Parking “Facilities Free Superfast Broadband Dog friendly Off road parking Smoke-free Garden / Patios Cot available Dishwasher *Washing Machine”

Worth knowing before you book

These places state on their own site that they do not take children.

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 (opens in new tab).

Other fells near Common Fell