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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 →

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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 (Tue 28 Jul): 17° to 15°C, gusts to 34 mph, 1.3 mm of rain forecast.

Tue 28 Jul
🌦️
17° / 15°
💨 34 mph
🌧 1.3 mm (100%)
Wed 29 Jul
🌦️
17° / 12°
💨 22 mph
🌧 1.8 mm (100%)
Thu 30 Jul
🌦️
15° / 7°
💨 29 mph
🌧 0.8 mm (78%)
Fri 31 Jul
🌤️
16° / 5°
💨 24 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (78%)
Sat 1 Aug
🌦️
16° / 7°
💨 12 mph
🌧 5.1 mm (54%)
Sun 2 Aug
☁️
17° / 5°
💨 18 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (24%)
Mon 3 Aug
🌦️
17° / 7°
💨 13 mph
🌧 0.2 mm (23%)

Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 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.

Pro mountain forecasts: MWIS · Met Office mountain forecast

About the walk

Key information

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.

Birketts by Gowbarrow
12 km · ~3.3 hr
Classifications & hill data
Birkett
Synge
437 m
Height
1,434 ft
In feet
NY 4147 2232
Grid ref

Map & nearby Birketts

Free mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.

Nearest parking: The Hause, Little Mell Fell (verge), about 1.6 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
1.4 km NEWatermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)424 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

Birketts by GowbarrowPlanned
12.03 km · ~550 m ascent · loop · ~3–4.5 h
Summits: Green Hill - Gowbarrow ParkGowbarrow Fell (Wainwright summit)Great MeldrumLittle MeldrumWatermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)

⬇️ 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 ↗

✎️ 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.

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).

The Hause, Little Mell Fell (verge) — 1.6 km from summit (straight line)
Verge parking at the high point of the Watermillock road.
Directions
Aira Force (NT, paid) — 2.4 km from summit (straight line)
For Gowbarrow Fell and the path toward Great Dodd via Dockray.
Directions
🚺 Aira Force Car Park (130m) — Free · Accessible☕ Aira Force Tearooms

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.

Water & shelter on the way up

On the Birketts by Gowbarrow route:

💧 possible water source (2 m)💧 possible water source (74 m)🚌 Aira Force - Park Brow Foot (183 m)🚌 Park Brow Foot - Aira Force (185 m)

💧 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.

Buses to Great Meldrum from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere

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 or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

Other fells near Great Meldrum

Maps & guidebooks for Great Meldrum

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