Heughscar Hill
Heughscar Hill at 375m (1,230ft) 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.
Summit conditions on Heughscar Hill
On the summit on Tuesday 27 October: 13° to 7°C, gusts to 51 mph, 9.4 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 →
Routes up Heughscar Hill
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Two gentle tops above Pooley Bridge — 11.7 km and 437 m, with one 22% pull over 250 m early on, and moderate for length, steepness, ground and navigation: around 3–4¼ hours.
Distance and climb are measured from the route’s GPX track, and the time from them by Naismith’s rule; the route page says what each grade rests on. How we check →
How hard is Heughscar Hill?
The shortest way up we hold is Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike — 11.68 km, 437 m of ascent, ~3–4¼ h. On our scale its hardest axes are distance, steepness and navigation — Moderate.
All axes: length: Moderate · steepness: Moderate · navigation: Moderate · terrain: Not assessed · exposure: Not assessed.
These are the route page’s grades, set by the rules on how we grade: length and steepness measured from its GPX track, the others set on the ground, judged from the map or estimated from OpenStreetMap. The route page says which. How we check →
Conditions and 7-day summit forecast
Modelled for the 375 m summit (Open-Meteo). Check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
Full 7-day forecast
Taken 27 October 2026, 20:59 UTC; the live forecast replaces it when it loads. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (opens in new tab)
Parking & buses for Heughscar Hill
Parking
Route starts first, then the car parks nearest the summit, which are not always a way up.
3 more places to park near Heughscar Hill
Positions are approximate.
Of the pay-and-display machine tickets sold at Pooley Bridge (Eusemere) from 17 August 2024 to 31 March 2026, 7% were bought before 10am (our count of FOI/2026.500 ticket data). Contains public sector information provided by the Lake District National Park Authority and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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 508, 509, UB1 and UB2 stop at Pooley Bridge Inn, an 80 m walk from the start of Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike — a route we rate Moderate overall (hardest: distance, steepness and navigation). The UB1 and UB2 run until 1 November 2026, the last day of their season. 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; that timetable runs to 1 November 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Getting there across the Lake District: Buses · Parking map · By train · By boat
Hazards on Heughscar Hill
Notes from a planned route, not walked: Heughscar Hill & Arthur's Pike
If you need to get off (the leg from the start): Turn around and follow the wide, deeply rutted bridleway back down the way you came, to the valley road.
Quoted from the route page of a planned route, drawn from the map and not yet walked: the note for the leg that reaches Heughscar Hill.
We have not written a hazard card for this fell yet, and that is not a sign that it is low-hazard. Read the warnings on the route pages that climb it, 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, GPX and 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 Heughscar Hill
No bonus Birketts within 3 km.
Routes over Heughscar Hill
Download GPX Planned route · not yet walked
Every line here is a guide, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate for yourself and carry a map and 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:
Treat water from the fell before you drink it. A mapped point is not proof the water is drinkable, so carry your own or use a supply you know is safe. Never drink untreated from a beck, stream or tarn — even clear-looking hill water can carry giardia or cryptosporidium from livestock upstream and leave you seriously ill. Use a treatment method suited to what might be in the water, and follow the device’s own instructions. Boiling and ordinary filters do not make water with dissolved metals or chemicals safe: where that is possible, choose another source.
On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.
About Heughscar Hill
Classifications & hill data
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.
Selected lists
This is the summit’s grid reference. If you call from anywhere else, give your own position, not this one.
The summit is also a Birkett.
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 →
Places to stay near this fell
- Hillcroft Park (opens in new tab)about 0.8 km
- Ullswater House (Hillcroft Park) (opens in new tab)about 0.1 km
We have not stayed at any of them. We take no bookings or affiliate fees. Distances are straight lines from each route start, never walking times. Properties found via OpenStreetMap (opens in new tab).