Ponsonby Fell
Ponsonby Fell rises to 315m (1,033ft) in the quiet west of the Lake District, above Gosforth and the wooded valley of the River Bleng (Blengdale).
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 315 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Fri 11 Sep): 14° to 10°C, gusts to 23 mph, 2.0 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 11 Sep 2026, 08:30 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 315 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Ponsonby Fell at a glance
Getting there
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Ponsonby Fell a Wainwright?
Ponsonby Fell 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 Ponsonby Fell?
The nearest car park we hold is Stone Pike (verge), about 1.8 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Ponsonby Fell car park, 1.8 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.
Routes up Ponsonby Fell
No route guide for this fell yet. The nearest routes we publish start close by:
- Whin Rigg, Illgill Head & the Wastwater Screes — starts 5.7 km away
Parking & buses for Ponsonby Fell
Best parking to hike Ponsonby Fell
Where we have the data, each parking spot also shows the nearest public toilets and facilities (cafés, pubs, shops).
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 Ponsonby Fell by bus
The nearest bus stop we hold is the 77 at Buttermere, outside Court Hotel, 22.3 km of walking from the start — not realistically reachable without a car. It is a seasonal service too: 1 November 2026 is its last day of the year (confirmed with the operator, 29 August 2026).
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Hazards on Ponsonby Fell
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
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Stone Pike (verge), about 1.8 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Ponsonby Fell (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.
On the hill: terrain and water on Ponsonby Fell
Terrain & access
A pathless top (about 315 m) — the nearest mapped path is about 370 m away, the open ground you’d cross to the summit (about 52 m of ascent, up to ~23°). 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 144 fells.