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437 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

Great Meldrum

Great Meldrum at 437m (1,434ft) is a Birkett top on the moorland above the Matterdale valley east of Ullswater, its open summit giving views across the eastern fells and towards the Pennines.

437 m
Height
+5
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →
437 mBirkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)+5 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 437 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Fri 11 Sep): 13° to 9°C, gusts to 23 mph, 0.9 mm of rain forecast.

Fri 11 Sep
🌦️
13° / 9°
💨 23 mph
🌧 0.9 mm (100%)
Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
16° / 8°
💨 42 mph
🌧 11.3 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
☁️
13° / 8°
💨 17 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (62%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌧️
16° / 10°
💨 32 mph
🌧 7.0 mm (100%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌦️
15° / 9°
💨 35 mph
🌧 4.4 mm (89%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
12° / 9°
💨 32 mph
🌧 1.0 mm (78%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌦️
12° / 9°
💨 37 mph
🌧 4.2 mm (92%)

Forecast snapshot from 11 Sep 2026, 08:30 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 437 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.

Great Meldrum at a glance

Great Meldrum

Great Meldrum at 437m (1,434ft) is a Birkett top on the moorland above the Matterdale valley east of Ullswater, its open summit giving views across the eastern fells and towards the Pennines. Part of the broad fell country between Ullswater and the high moorland east of the main Lakeland hills. A quiet, unfrequented summit.

Routes up Great Meldrum

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

Classifications & hill data

Birkett
Synge
437 m
Height
1,434 ft
In feet
NY 4147 2232
Grid ref

The short answers

Is Great Meldrum a Wainwright?

Great Meldrum is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.

Where do you park for Great Meldrum?

The nearest car park we hold is Roadside parking for Watermillock Fell (free), about 1.5 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is The Hause, Little Mell Fell (verge), 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 Great Meldrum?

The shortest way up we hold is Birketts by Gowbarrow — 12 km, 550 m of ascent, about 3.3 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is navigation — Hard.

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

Parking & buses for Great Meldrum

Best parking to hike Great Meldrum

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

Roadside parking for Watermillock Fell (free) — 1.5 km from summit (straight line)
0.2 km from Watermillock Fell. Added from the 5 Aug 2026 OSM candidate review.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
The Hause, Little Mell Fell (verge) — 1.6 km from summit (straight line)
Verge parking at the high point of the Watermillock road.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Hallin Fell (verge, west) — 1.9 km from summit (straight line)
1.3 km from Hallin Fell.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Hallin Fell, north-west (layby 2) — 1.9 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Hallin Fell (1.3 km), Green Hill - Gowbarrow Park (1.4 km), Sleet Fell (1.7 km). Free (OSM-tagged). Gravel surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Hallin Fell, north-west (layby) — 1.9 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Hallin Fell (1.3 km), Green Hill - Gowbarrow Park (1.3 km), Sleet Fell (1.7 km). Free (OSM-tagged). Gravel surface (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 Great Meldrum by bus

The 508 stops at Matterdale, opposite Aira Force, 240 m from the start of Birketts by Gowbarrow. 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 Great Meldrum

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: Roadside parking for Watermillock Fell (free), about 1.5 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Great Meldrum (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.

0.9 km ENELittle Meldrum404 m · Eastern
1.5 km SSWGreen Hill - Gowbarrow Park439 m · Eastern
2.5 km WSWBracken How373 m · Eastern
2.7 km SWRound How387 m · Eastern

Routes over Great Meldrum

12.03 km · ~550 m ascent · loop · ~3–4.5 h

⬇️ Download GPX

⚠️ Warnings: Access: The summits of Little Meldrum and Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top) lie outside mapped CRoW open-access land. That records no statutory right of access — it is not a statement that access is forbidden, and permissive access is not recorded in that layer. This line is computed rather than walked, so treat the access as unchecked and look for the courteous way through — how we work this out.

Full route guide ↗

🥾 Walked in part — Lee walked this ground in August 2023; km 0.7–2.3, km 3.0–3.7, km 3.8–4.7 of this line are from the map.

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 Great Meldrum

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 Great Meldrum