The short answers
Is Four Stones Hill a Wainwright?
Four Stones Hill is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.
Where do you park for Four Stones Hill?
The nearest car park we hold is Hugh's Laithes Pike (verge), about 1.3 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Naddle Farm Top car park, 1.6 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 Four Stones Hill?
The shortest way up we hold is Pinnacle Howe and Four Stones Hill — 7.3 km, 262 m of ascent, about 1.9 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is navigation — Hard.
All axes: navigation: Hard · terrain: Moderate · steepness: Moderate · exposure: Easy · length: Easy.
Parking & buses for Four Stones Hill
Best parking to hike Four Stones Hill
Where we have the data, each parking spot also shows the nearest public toilets and facilities (cafés, pubs, shops).
Naddle Farm Top car park — 1.6 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Naddle Farm Top (Naddle Horseshoe - 3) (0.9 km), Hugh's Laithes Pike (1.1 km), Pinnacle Howe (1.2 km). Fee not verified — check signage on arrival.
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 Four Stones Hill by bus
The 508 stops at Pooley Bridge Inn (at), 90 m from the start of Pooley Bridge to Shap. The last bus is 19:20 towards Windermere (508) and 18:36 towards Troutbeck (UB1) and 16:32 towards Aira Force (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.
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip map
Free mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Hugh's Laithes Pike (verge), about 1.3 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Four Stones Hill (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.
Routes over Four Stones Hill
7.26 km · ~262 m ascent · loop · ~1.5–2.5 h
⬇️ 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.
21.17 km · ~627 m ascent · linear · ~5–7 h
✎️ Point-to-point, not a loop: you finish 13 km from where you began, so the return by bus is part of the plan rather than an afterthought - see the final stage. A leisure crossing rather than a summit day: it takes Heughscar Hill on the way and passes just under Four Stones Hill without leaving the path. Do not be misled by the modest height - navigation grades Hard, with about 22% of the line on featureless high ground, and Askham Fell and Moor Divock in cloud are harder than 400 m suggests.
⬇️ Download GPX
Best season: All year. Best in clear weather - the Askham Fell and Moor Divock section is featureless in cloud.
⚠️ Warnings: The 106 bus from Shap is Monday to Saturday only and infrequent - confirm the timetable before setting out, or arrange a lift. No food or water between Bampton (about 10 km) and Shap.
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.
Places to stay near this fell
Other places nearby
about 2.5 km from the start, in a straight line
It is the only one of the six candidates inside this radius whose site returned a single byte, and it happens to answer two of the questions that matter at this start. A walker arriving with a dog gets a real answer rather than a slogan: twelve rooms are named, and the page goes further and offers the opposite choice too ("Please let us know if you prefer to stay in a non-dog friendly room"), which tells a party with a dog-averse member as much as it tells the dog owner. And there is a restaurant on site with two rosettes, which at a start this far up the Haweswater road decides whether you get back in the car after the walk. What it does not answer is the whole family half of the row — no children, cot, family room, parking, drying or breakfast wording exists anywhere in the four cached pages — so a family should phone before booking rather than read anything into the silence.
It went up in 1937 as part of the Haweswater dam works, and it exists because the reservoir drowned the inn it replaced — the old Dun Bull. Its own history page also claims it is the only building in the hundred square miles of nature reserve around the lake.
- Dogs “Dogs are allowed in the following rooms: Wainwright, Mardale, Lonsdale, Westmorland, Artle Crag, Lakeside, Measand, Whelter Crag, Swindale, Cawdale, Rosgil, Wet Sleddle.”
- Evening meal “Our restaurant was awarded Two Rosettes in 2024”
about 6.0 km from the start, in a straight line
At 5.95 km this is outside our usual 4.83 km radius, and it is here because nothing closer answers the questions a family asks: of the six candidates inside the radius, five publish nothing and the sixth says not one word about children, cots, family rooms, drying, laundry or parking. New Ing Lodge is the nearest cached property that answers those questions in its own words rather than ours, and it answers them as a block: family ensuite rooms, overnight laundry, free parking, a play area, an EV charger. The laundry line is the one that earns its place here — "Overnight Laundry" is the thing that gets a child's soaked kit usable for a second day on the fell, and it is the only such claim in the whole 9 km searched.
The whole lodge can be taken over at once — its exclusive-hire listing puts the place at sleeping up to 30, with a kitchen, a games room and a fire pit — and at the other end of the scale it still runs a bunk dorm, four bunks to the room.
- Family rooms “Family Ensuite Rooms Double Ensuite Rooms FULLY LICENSED BAR Overnight Laundry Free Parking GARDEN AREA PLAY AREA Outdoor Seating area EV Charger”
- Parking “Family Ensuite Rooms Double Ensuite Rooms FULLY LICENSED BAR Overnight Laundry Free Parking GARDEN AREA PLAY AREA Outdoor Seating area EV Charger”
Other places nearby
about 0.8 km from the start, in a straight line
The only property in the whole 4.83 km radius with a drying room named for wet boots and outdoor gear, which is the single fact that matters most to a party coming off Heughscar Hill in the rain. It is also the only one pairing that with a dedicated laundry room, a dog shower and a toddler-through-older-child play area, so a walking family and a non-walking family are both answered by one row. Ranked above four closer properties on usefulness, per the selection rule; 0.78 km is still a walk into Pooley Bridge village.
The guest drying room is code-locked and you collect the code from Reception; the shower block was built with a dog wash built into it, and the on-site shop sells local sausages, eggs, bacon and bread.
- Drying room “There is also a drying room available to guests for wet boots and outdoor gear”
- Dogs “we also included an area just for dogs; so get out into the fells altogether then wash the mud off them with our doggy shower”
- Children “Our play area is set just up from the entrance and features a toddler area plus more daring slides and swings for older ones.”
about 0.1 km from the start, in a straight line
The nearest bed to the start at 100 m, and the answer for a large party: 14 people across six en-suite bedrooms, one of them a designated family room, with cots and high chairs available to hire and parking for several cars in the grounds - the group problem that no cottage or B&B in this cluster solves. Two bedrooms are on the ground floor, which matters after a long day. It shares an operator and an email with Hillcroft Park (rank 1) but not a purpose: that one is a park with a boot drying room, this is a house in the middle of the village.
You collect the keys from Hillcroft Park up the hill rather than at the house itself, and the hot tub's bathrobes are provided for adults only.
- Family rooms “1 family en-suite bedroom (super-king, single and pull out single bed).”
- Parking “Garden area with furniture, ample parking in the grounds for several cars.”
- Children “Cots and high chairs are available to hire.”