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375 m · Outlying Fell — Around Penrith · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses, my hikes and live summit weather.

Outlying Fell — Around PenrithAlso a Birkett

Heughscar Hill

Heughscar Hill at 279m (915ft) is a small, heathery fell above Askham near Ullswater, its open top giving views across the Lowther valley and towards Ullswater.

375 m
Height
+0
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →

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375 mOutlying Fell — Around Penrith✓ summit is also a Birkett+0 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 375 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Sat 12 Sep): 17° to 9°C, gusts to 36 mph, 5.8 mm of rain forecast.

Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
17° / 9°
💨 36 mph
🌧 5.8 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
☁️
16° / 9°
💨 13 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (16%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌦️
18° / 12°
💨 33 mph
🌧 1.2 mm (99%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌦️
16° / 10°
💨 31 mph
🌧 2.2 mm (97%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
13° / 9°
💨 26 mph
🌧 0.6 mm (41%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌦️
12° / 9°
💨 30 mph
🌧 4.3 mm (82%)
Fri 18 Sep
🌦️
13° / 10°
💨 33 mph
🌧 4.6 mm (76%)

Forecast snapshot from 12 Sep 2026, 18:50 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 375 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

Heughscar Hill at a glance

Heughscar Hill

Heughscar Hill at 279m (915ft) is a small, heathery fell above Askham near Ullswater, its open top giving views across the Lowther valley and towards Ullswater. Wainwright included it in his Outlying Fells guide as part of the Around Penrith group. A gentle, easy walk with views of Ullswater and the Eastern Fells on the horizon. Part of the pleasant fell country between Penrith and Ullswater.

Routes up Heughscar Hill

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

Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike
11.7 km · ~3.1 hr
Two gentle tops on the limestone above Pooley Bridge — 11.7 km and 436 m, nothing steeper than about 8%, and easy for exposure. Moderate throughout otherwise: around 3.1 hours.
Pooley Bridge to Shap
21.2 km · ~5.3 hr
A one-way crossing from Ullswater to the edge of the Shap fells: over Heughscar Hill and the old Roman road on Askham Fell, past the stone circles of Moor Divock, then south over open ground to Four Stones Hill before dropping to Bampton and following the valley out to Shap. One real summit, a lot of sky, and a walk that gets somewhere rather than returning to the car.

Classifications & hill data

Outlying Fell
Around Penrith
Birkett
Synge
375 m
Height
1,230 ft
In feet
NY 4880 2316
Grid ref

The short answers

Is Heughscar Hill a Wainwright?

Heughscar Hill is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells, not one of the 214 in the Pictorial Guides. It is also on the Birkett list and the Synge list.

Where do you park for Heughscar Hill?

The nearest car park we hold is Car park for Heughscar Hill (free), about 1.0 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Dunmallet, east (layby), 1.9 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 Heughscar Hill?

The shortest way up we hold is Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike — 11.7 km, 436 m of ascent, about 3.1 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is terrain — Moderate.

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

Parking & buses for Heughscar Hill

Best parking to hike Heughscar Hill

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

Car park for Heughscar Hill (free) — 1.0 km from summit (straight line)
Approx 8 spaces. 1 km from Heughscar Hill. Added from the 5 Aug 2026 OSM candidate review.
Directions Something changed here?
Dunmallet, east (layby) — 1.9 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Heughscar Hill and Arthur's Pike — the 'Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike' route starts 322 m away. Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Dunmallet, east (layby 2) — 2.0 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Heughscar Hill and Arthur's Pike — the 'Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike' route starts 195 m away. Free (OSM-tagged). OSM records a 2-hour maximum stay here (24 Jul 2026 extract) - that will not cover the Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike walk, which is about 3 hours; 'Dunmallet, south-east car park (free)' is 38 m from the same route start and carries no such limit.
Directions Something changed here?
Eusemere Car Park (LDNPA, paid) — 2.1 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Heughscar Hill and Arthur's Pike — the 'Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike' route starts 71 m away. Fees: £5.50 for 2 hours (aggregator-listed).
Directions Something changed here?
Dunmallet, south car park — 2.1 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Dunmallet (Dunmallard Hill) (0.7 km). Fee not verified — check signage on arrival.
Directions 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 Heughscar Hill by bus

The 508 stops at Pooley Bridge Inn (at), 80 m from the start of Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike. 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 or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

Hazards on Heughscar Hill

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: Car park for Heughscar Hill (free), about 1.0 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Heughscar Hill (within 3 km)

No bonus Birketts within 3 km — every Birkett near here is already a Wainwright summit, so just enjoy the walk.

Routes over Heughscar Hill

Heughscar Hill & Arthur's PikePlanned
11.68 km · ~436 m ascent · loop · ~3–4 h
Summits: Heughscar HillArthur's Pike

⬇️ 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.

Pooley Bridge to ShapPlanned
21.17 km · ~627 m ascent · linear · ~5–7 h
Summits: Heughscar HillFour Stones Hill

✎️ 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.

On the hill: terrain and water on Heughscar Hill

Water & shelter on the way up

On the Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike route:

💧 possible water source (60 m)💧 possible water source (60 m)💧 possible water source (88 m)💧 possible water source (102 m)🚺 map (94 m)🚺 map (94 m)🚌 The Crown Hotel (24 m)🚌 Ullswater Guest House (68 m)🚌 Steamer Pier (350 m)

On the Pooley Bridge to Shap route:

💧 possible water source (60 m)💧 possible water source (60 m)💧 possible water source (88 m)💧 possible water source (102 m)🚺 map (94 m)🚺 map (94 m)🚌 Main Street Co-Op (44 m)🚌 The Crown Hotel (67 m)🚌 Main Street at the Bield (76 m)🚌 Ullswater Guest House (108 m)⛺ New Ing Lodge (216 m)⛺ New Ing Lodge Camping (229 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.

Places to stay near this fell

Hillcroft Park

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.”

Ullswater House (Hillcroft Park)

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.”

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.

Other fells near Heughscar Hill