Calf Top Cumbrian hill re-categorised as a mountain

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Calf Top, Middleton Fell, seen from Castle KnottImage source, Gordon Mabson/Geograph
Image caption,
Calf Top "has not grown", Ordnance Survey said

A Cumbrian hill has inched its way to mountain status.

Calf Top, near the Yorkshire Dales and Sedbergh, was measured in 2010 at 1999.9ft (609.579m), just under the Ordnance Survey's 2000ft threshold.

New methods of calculating height now show it to be 2000.02ft (609.606m).

Geodetic analyst Mark Greaves said the peak had originally appeared to be "very, very close" to being a mountain but "about three quarters of an inch too low".

It was so close, they measured it twice.

'A better measurement'

"Calf Top has not grown," Ordnance Survey said.

"The change in height has resulted from improvements to the OS GPS [global positioning system] coordinates network and even greater precision on how we measure heights from the mean sea level in Britain."

It was unlikely the change would push any other Cumbrian hills into the mountain category and it would have no effect on OS maps, which have figures rounded to the nearest metre, Mr Greaves added.

Ben Nevis "gained" height in March but for a different reason.

They "just took a better measurement" than surveyors in the 1940s had managed, Mr Greaves said.

Some earth movement - "tectonic uplift and what's called post glacial rebound" - could also account for the increase, he said.

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