Great Bank
Short entry: no route or hazard notes for this fell yet.
Great Bank at 329m (1,079ft) is a Birkett top 0.6 km south of Irton Fell, its moorland summit above Miterdale and 1.8 km north of Eskdale Green. Part of the low fell country around Irton Fell.
Summit conditions on Great Bank
On the summit on Tuesday 27 October: 14° to 7°C, gusts to 54 mph, 4.1 mm of rain forecast over the whole day, midnight to midnight.
The forecast figures are Open-Meteo’s, worked out for the summit’s height. How we check →
Parking & buses
Routes near Great Bank
No route guide for this fell yet. The nearest route starts we publish, in a straight line from the summit:
- Whin Rigg, Illgill Head & the Wastwater Screes — starts 2.4 km away
- Boat How, Illgill Head & Whin Rigg — starts 3.2 km away
- Slight Side & Sca Fell — starts 5.7 km away
Conditions and 7-day summit forecast
Modelled for the 329 m summit (Open-Meteo). Check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
Full 7-day forecast
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 Great Bank
Parking
2 more places to park near Great Bank
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
The nearest bus stop we hold is the 77 at Honister Youth Hostel (near), 16.3 km of walking from the nearest parking for this fell — no bus route we hold serves it. It is a seasonal service too: 1 November 2026 is its last day of the year (confirmed with the operator, 29 August 2026); it returns on 22 March 2027.
By train: change at Ravenglass onto the Ravenglass & Eskdale (narrow gauge, seasonal, not in the National Rail timetable), and Irton Road station is 1.9 km on foot from the nearest parking for this fell (Great Bank (layby)). We haven’t mapped a route up it from there, so we can’t tell you the walk to the start. National Rail at Ravenglass, on the Cumbrian Coast line, not the narrow gauge: First train in 06:39, last train out 20:52, Monday to Friday, checked 12 September, valid to the 12 December timetable change; Saturday and Sunday.
At the station: Ravenglass, where you change, has some step-free access to its platforms, and there are no toilets. The rest of what meets that train. Station facilities: NationalRail (Train Information Services Ltd).
Cabs: Ravenglass station has neither a taxi rank nor a cab office. Advance booking is essential. Consider using the following local operator: Gosforth 019467 25308. As Traintaxi supplies them, read 4 October 2026. Traintaxi leaves “taxis” out of a firm’s name. Lee checked them on 4 October 2026. © Traintaxi Limited, 2000-2026. Using cabs in the UK.
Getting there across the Lake District: Buses · Parking map · By train · By boat
Hazards on Great Bank
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
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap, with SRTM elevation data (switch layers top-right).
Parking, toilets and buses: Parking & buses ↑.
Birketts within 3 km of Great Bank
These Birkett tops are not Wainwright summits. Distances are straight lines: check the ground and access on a map before adding one.
On the hill: terrain and water on Great Bank
Terrain & access
A near-path top (about 329 m): a mapped path comes within about 147 m of the summit. We have not checked a way from it to the top: the figures here are measured along a straight line on a terrain model, not a route. That line climbs about 23 m. Parts of it are steeper than 30°. The direct line crosses 1 wall, 1 gate.
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 Great Bank
Access: summit and direct approach lie within mapped open-access land (CRoW). The usual access-land conditions apply.
Walls & fences: the approach crosses a wall. No stile or gate is mapped within 150 m of the crossing — that’s a statement about the map, not the wall, which may well have one. Expect to walk the wall to find a crossing rather than climbing it, and turn back if you find none: dry-stone walls are working boundaries and take real damage from climbers.
Local restrictions can close open-access areas temporarily — check the official open-access information (opens in new tab) before travelling.
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 Great Bank
Classifications & hill data
Is Great Bank a Wainwright?
Great Bank is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.
Selected lists
This is the summit’s grid reference. If you call from anywhere else, give your own position, not this one.
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 →