hikes.guideLake District

Cunswick Scar

Short entry: no route or hazard notes for this fell yet.

Nearest route starts ↓
207 mOutlying Fell — South Lakeland

Cunswick Scar at 207m (679ft) is a limestone escarpment above Kendal, its scarp edge giving fine views of the town and the Lakeland fells beyond. Wainwright included it in his Outlying Fells guide.

Summit conditions on Cunswick Scar

On the summit on Tuesday 27 October: 14° to 8°C, gusts to 38 mph, 4.4 mm of rain forecast over the whole day, midnight to midnight.

Full 7-day summit forecast ↓

The forecast figures are Open-Meteo’s, worked out for the summit’s height. How we check →

Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (opens in new tab)

Parking & buses

Plumgarths layby (free)
0.8 km from summit (straight line)
Cunswick Scar, north car park (free)
1.2 km from summit (straight line)

Parking & buses ↓

Routes near Cunswick Scar

No route guide for this fell yet. The nearest route starts we publish, in a straight line from the summit:

Conditions and 7-day summit forecast

Modelled for the 207 m summit (Open-Meteo). Check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

Full 7-day forecast
Tue 27 Oct
14° / 8°
38 mph
4.4 mm (100%)
Wed 28 Oct
13° / 9°
31 mph
6.4 mm (100%)
Thu 29 Oct
11° / 10°
24 mph
0.1 mm (10%)
Fri 30 Oct
11° / 7°
24 mph
0.0 mm (21%)
Sat 31 Oct
13° / 2°
7 mph
0.0 mm (16%)
Sun 1 Nov
9° / 2°
11 mph
0.0 mm (16%)
Mon 2 Nov
10° / 3°
13 mph
0.0 mm (0%)

Taken 27 October 2026, 08:13 UTC; the live forecast replaces it when it loads. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (opens in new tab)

Parking & buses for Cunswick Scar

Parking

Plumgarths layby (free) — 0.8 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Cunswick Scar (0.8 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Cunswick Scar, north car park (free) — 1.2 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Cunswick Scar (1.2 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Cunswick Scar, east car park (free) — 1.7 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Cunswick Scar (1.7 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
2 more places to park near Cunswick Scar
Cunswick Scar, north-east car park — 1.9 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Cunswick Scar (1.9 km). Fee not verified — check signage on arrival.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Scout Scar, north-east car park (free) — 1.9 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Scout Scar (Wainwright summit) (0.5 km), Cunswick Scar (1.9 km). Free (OSM-tagged). Unpaved surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?

Positions are approximate.

Vehicles are left at their owner’s risk: we list places people park and cannot vouch for any of them. Take valuables with you and leave nothing on show.

Buses

We don’t know yet. The path network around this start isn’t mapped well enough for us to measure a walk from the nearest stop. That’s a gap in our data, not a sign that no bus comes here.

Getting there across the Lake District: Buses · Parking map · By train · By boat

Hazards on Cunswick Scar

We have not written a hazard card for this fell yet, and that is not a sign that it is low-hazard. Check the forecast, carry a map and compass, and turn back in cloud if the ground is not what you expected. The National Park Authority’s What to pack page, AdventureSmart’s hill walking kit list and Mountain Rescue England and Wales’s safety page are linked from our what to carry guide.

If you need Mountain Rescue

Dial 999 or 112 and ask for the Police, then Mountain Rescue.

Before you call, have ready: where you are (a grid reference if you can – the OS Locate app shows yours on your phone), what has happened, how many of you there are, and your mobile number.

Then stay where you are until the rescue team contacts you.

If you cannot make a voice call because of a hearing or speech impairment, emergency SMS works only if you have registered first: text “register” to 999.

From Mountain Rescue England and Wales’s guidance on calling them out (opens in new tab) (read 26 October 2026).

Map & nearby Birketts

Free mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap, with SRTM elevation data (switch layers top-right).

Parking, toilets and buses: Parking & buses ↑.

Birketts within 3 km of Cunswick Scar

No bonus Birketts within 3 km.

On the hill: terrain and water on Cunswick Scar

Terrain & access

A 207 m top with a mapped path to within about 4 m of the summit.

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 v18.4 (CC BY 4.0); Copernicus GLO-30. See the terrain & access report for how this is worked out across all 144 fells.

Access on Cunswick Scar

Access: no access land or recorded right of way is mapped to this summit, but an established path to it is described by several independent published walks (checked 29 July 2026). That is evidence of long use, not a legal right: follow the signs and any closures on the ground.

How we worked out the access

Summit and approach positions are tested against Natural England’s CRoW Act 2000 access layer; rights of way and wall or fence detail come from OpenStreetMap. Both are open datasets with known gaps — in our own survey only 4 of 26 wall and fence crossings had a stile or gate mapped within 150 m — so absence of a mapped feature never means absence of a real one. Nothing here is field-verified unless marked, and none of it is legal advice. How we checked 377 fells.

Access land: © Natural England copyright. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

About Cunswick Scar

The walk along the scarp edge from Underbarrow is pleasant and gives steadily improving views of the Lakeland fells. A good short walk accessible from Kendal.

Classifications & hill data

Is Cunswick Scar a Wainwright?

Cunswick Scar is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells, not one of the 214 in the Pictorial Guides.

Selected lists

207 m
Height
679 ft
In feet
SD 4915 9430
Grid ref

This is the summit’s grid reference. If you call from anywhere else, give your own position, not this one.

The summit is not a Birkett top.

Lists, height and summit position from the Database of British and Irish Hills; the feet are converted from its metres and the grid reference from that position. How we check →

Other fells near Cunswick Scar