Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)
Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top) is a Birkett (one of the 541 tops in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells), a quiet Eastern top reached by few walkers.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 424 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 18° to 15°C, gusts to 34 mph, 1.3 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 424 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
About the walk
Routes up Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: The Hause, Little Mell Fell (verge), about 0.9 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top) (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.
Routes over Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)
✎️ 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 424 m): a mapped path comes within about 109 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 17 m of ascent, up to ~17°). 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 145 fells.
Best parking to hike Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)
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.
Water & shelter on the way up
On the Birketts by Gowbarrow route:
💧 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.
Buses to Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top) from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere
No regular bus serves the start points for this fell — this is one for the car (or a long approach from the nearest served valley). The nearest hubs are Penrith (X4/X5 & 508), Ambleside and Windermere (555, 505, 516).
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
My hikes over Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top) (Strava)
1 logged hike pass over this summit:
- A couple more Wainwrights with the kids. (opens in new tab) — 14.5 km · 666 m ascent · 4h 02m moving · 28 Aug 2023
Interactive route maps and photos load here for visitors with JavaScript. Data from Strava.
Other fells near Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)
- Arnison Crag
- Birkhouse Moor
- Birks
- Catstye Cam
- Clough Head
- Dollywaggon Pike
- Dove Crag
- Fairfield
- Glenridding Dodd
- Gowbarrow Fell (Wainwright summit)
- Great Dodd
- Great Mell Fell
- Great Rigg
- Hart Crag
- Hart Side
- Hartsop Above How (Gill Crag - Hartsop Above How)
- Helvellyn
- Heron Pike (Rydal)
- High Hartsop Dodd
- High Pike (Scandale)
- Little Hart Crag (Little Hart Crag - West Top)
- Little Mell Fell
- Low Pike
- Middle Dodd
- Nab Scar
- Nethermost Pike
- Raise
- Red Screes
- Seat Sandal
- Sheffield Pike
- St Sunday Crag
- Stone Arthur
- Stybarrow Dodd
- Watson's Dodd
- White Side
Maps & guidebooks for Watermillock Fell (Little Mell Fell South Top)
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