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414 m · Birkett — Central (not a Wainwright summit) · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses, my hikes and live summit weather.

Birkett — Central (not a Wainwright summit)Birkett top

Lang How

Lang How is a Birkett (one of the 541 tops in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells), a quiet Central top reached by few walkers.

414 m
Height
+2
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX →

Home › Fells › Lang How

Written and walked by Lee McCoy · Last reviewed

414 mBirkett — Central (not a Wainwright summit)+2 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 414 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 33 mph, 10.3 mm of rain forecast.

Tue 28 Jul
🌧️
17° / 15°
💨 33 mph
🌧 10.3 mm (100%)
Wed 29 Jul
🌧️
16° / 13°
💨 26 mph
🌧 2.7 mm (100%)
Thu 30 Jul
🌦️
14° / 7°
💨 28 mph
🌧 1.3 mm (78%)
Fri 31 Jul
🌤️
16° / 3°
💨 24 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (78%)
Sat 1 Aug
🌦️
16° / 5°
💨 15 mph
🌧 3.6 mm (54%)
Sun 2 Aug
🌫️
17° / 7°
💨 19 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (24%)
Mon 3 Aug
🌦️
18° / 7°
💨 12 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 414 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

Lang How

Lang How is a Birkett (one of the 541 tops in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells), a quiet Central top reached by few walkers. The name comes from how (Old Norse haugr, a hill or rounded mound). It also features on the Synge list. Its nearest tops are Swinescar Pike (0.3 km W); Silver How (0.8 km SE); Castle How (Raw Pike) (1.2 km NW) — it's usually taken in on a round of these neighbours. It's a worthwhile objective for anyone working through the Birkett list, or as a short extension to a bigger day on the higher neighbouring fells.

Routes up Lang How

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

Castle How & Lang How - Birketts
10.9 km · ~2.9 hr
Classifications & hill data
Birkett
Synge
414 m
Height
1,358 ft
In feet
NY 3183 0704
Grid ref

Map & nearby Birketts

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

Nearest parking: Grasmere village (paid), about 2.0 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Lang How (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.

0.3 km WSwinescar Pike411 m · Central
1.2 km WNWCastle How (Raw Pike)498 m · Central

Routes over Lang How

Castle How & Lang How - BirkettsPlanned
10.91 km · ~445 m ascent · loop · ~2.5–4 h
Summits: Lang HowSwinescar PikeCastle How (Raw 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.

Terrain & access

A near-path top (about 414 m): a mapped path comes within about 98 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 11 m of ascent, up to ~14°). The summit is on CRoW open access land.

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; Copernicus GLO-30. See the terrain & access report for how this is worked out across all 145 fells.

Best parking to hike Lang How

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

Grasmere village (paid) — 2.0 km from summit (straight line)
For Helm Crag, Silver How, the Easedale fells and the Far Easedale round.
Directions
🚺 Grasmere (71m) — Accessible · RADAR key🚺 Stock Lane carpark (425m) — Accessible☕ The Little Inn Coffee Shop☕ Grasmere Tea Gardens☕ Thirteen Valleys Kitchen🍺 1769 Bar & Restaurant🍺 Tweedies Bar🍺 The Distiller’s Arms🏪 Grasmere Outdoors🏪 Mountain Hi🏪 Trespass🏪 Mountain Warehouse
Elterwater (NT, paid) — 2.6 km from summit (straight line)
For Lingmoor Fell, Silver How and lower Langdale.
Directions
🚺 Public toilets (690m) — Free🚺 Public toilets (726m) — Free🍺 Eltermere Inn

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 Castle How & Lang How - Birketts route:

🛖 map (42 m)🚌 Stock Lane at School (17 m)🚌 School (69 m)🚌 map (255 m)🚌 Daffodil House for Dove Cottage (313 m)

On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.

Buses to Lang How from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere

Stagecoach 555
Kendal – Staveley – Windermere – Ambleside – Rydal – Grasmere – Thirlmere (Wythburn & Swirls) – Keswick
Catch it from: Windermere · Ambleside
Year-round, roughly hourly. The backbone bus of the A591 — ideal for Helvellyn (Wythburn/Swirls), Fairfield, the Central fells and anything around Grasmere/Rydal. From Penrith, take the X4/X5 to Keswick and change.
Stagecoach 516 “Langdale Rambler”
Ambleside – Skelwith Bridge – Elterwater – New Dungeon Ghyll – Old Dungeon Ghyll
Catch it from: Ambleside · Windermere (change at Ambleside)
The Langdale bus — Pikes, Bowfell, Crinkle Crags, Pike o' Blisco all walkable from the Dungeon Ghyll stops. Seasonal frequency varies; check before relying on the last bus back.

Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

My hikes over Lang How (Strava)

1 logged hike pass over this summit:

Interactive route maps and photos load here for visitors with JavaScript. Data from Strava.

Other fells near Lang How

Maps & guidebooks for Lang How

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