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285 m · Outlying Fell — Northern Outliers · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses, my hikes and live summit weather.

Outlying Fell — Northern Outliers

St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

St John's Hill at 285m (935ft) is an Outlying Fell north of the Lake District proper near Bothel, forming the northern top of the Caermote Hill group.

285 m
Height
+0
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →
285 mOutlying Fell — Northern Outlierssummit is not a Birkett top+0 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 285 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 22 mph, 0.0 mm of rain forecast.

Fri 11 Sep
☁️
14° / 10°
💨 22 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (84%)
Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
17° / 10°
💨 42 mph
🌧 18.6 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
☁️
14° / 8°
💨 12 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (44%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌧️
16° / 8°
💨 30 mph
🌧 7.7 mm (88%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌦️
15° / 10°
💨 31 mph
🌧 4.0 mm (72%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
13° / 10°
💨 33 mph
🌧 1.0 mm (63%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌦️
12° / 11°
💨 38 mph
🌧 3.8 mm (82%)

Forecast snapshot from 11 Sep 2026, 08:30 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 285 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.

St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) at a glance

St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

St John's Hill at 285m (935ft) is an Outlying Fell north of the Lake District proper near Bothel, forming the northern top of the Caermote Hill group. Wainwright included it in his Outlying Fells guide as part of the Northern Outliers group. Gives views north across the Solway Firth to Scotland. A quiet, remote hill north of the main Lakeland fells.

Getting there

🅿️ Caermote Hill, south-east (layby 2)
Nearest fells: Caermote Hill (0.9 km), St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) (1.3 km). Free (OSM-tagged). Ground surface (OSM-tagged).
🅿️ Caermote Hill (layby)
Nearest fells: Caermote Hill (0.9 km), St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) (1.4 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
🚌 Stagecoach X4 / X5
Penrith – Rheged – Threlkeld – Keswick – Braithwaite – Cockermouth – Workington

Full parking & bus details ↓

Right now on the summit

☁️ 14°low 10°C
Gusts22 mph

Full 7-day summit forecast →

Classifications & hill data

Outlying Fell
Northern Outliers
285 m
Height
935 ft
In feet

The short answers

Is St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) a Wainwright?

St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells, not one of the 214 in the Pictorial Guides.

Where do you park for St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)?

The nearest car park we hold is Caermote Hill, south-east (layby 2), about 1.3 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Caermote Hill (layby), 1.4 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 St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

No route guide for this fell yet. The nearest routes we publish start close by:

Parking & buses for St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

Best parking to hike St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

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

Caermote Hill, south-east (layby 2) — 1.3 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Caermote Hill (0.9 km), St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) (1.3 km). Free (OSM-tagged). Ground surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Caermote Hill (layby) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Caermote Hill (0.9 km), St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) (1.4 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Caermote Hill, south-east (layby) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Caermote Hill (1.0 km), St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) (1.4 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Bothel (layby) — 2.3 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest published walking: 2.3 km from St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top). Fee not verified — check signage on arrival.
Directions (opens in new tab)Something changed here?
Moota (layby) — 3.1 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest published walking: 2.5 km from Clints Crags (Wainwright summit). Free (OSM-tagged). Ground surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions (opens in new tab)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 St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) by bus

The X4 stops at Castle Inn (stop 6), 4.3 km from the nearest parking for this fell. We haven’t mapped a route up it, so we can’t tell you the walk from there to the start. Last bus: Monday to Friday 18:30 towards Keswick (X4); Saturday 18:30 towards Keswick (X4); Sunday no service on any of the 3 sunday(s) checked. Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.

Stagecoach X4 / X5
Penrith – Rheged – Threlkeld – Keswick – Braithwaite – Cockermouth – Workington
Catch it from: Penrith
Year-round, every 30 minutes Monday to Saturday between Penrith and Keswick and hourly on Sundays, from outside Penrith station. One ticket from any station on the West Coast Main Line to Keswick includes this bus: search for ‘Keswick Bus (KWK)’ when you book the train. From Penrith this is your way into Keswick and the Northern fells — Threlkeld/Scales stops serve Blencathra directly, Braithwaite serves the Coledale fells.

Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

Hazards on St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

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: Caermote Hill, south-east (layby 2), about 1.3 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top) (within 3 km)

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

On the hill: terrain and water on St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

Terrain & access

A near-path top (about 285 m): a mapped path comes within about 192 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 16 m of ascent, up to ~10°). The summit is not on CRoW open access land, and the direct approach crosses land that is neither access land nor a right of way — there may be no public right to the top, so check access before you go.

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.

Access on St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)

Access: the open datasets show no access land and no recorded right of way reaching this summit. That describes the mapping, not necessarily the ground — permissive arrangements often go unmapped — but we don’t publish approach detail for fells where we can’t point to a public right or a landowner’s invitation. If you know of an access arrangement for this fell, we’d genuinely like to hear about it.

Local restrictions can close open-access areas temporarily — check the official open-access information (opens in new tab) before travelling.

How we worked this out

Summit and approach positions are tested against Natural England’s CRoW Act 2000 access layer; rights of way and wall or fence detail come from OpenStreetMap. Both are open datasets with known gaps — in our own survey only 4 of 23 wall and fence crossings had a stile or gate mapped within 150 m — so absence of a mapped feature never means absence of a real one. Nothing here is field-verified unless marked, and none of it is legal advice. How we checked 378 fells.

Other fells near St. John's Hill (Caermote Hill N Top)