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Birks (Lake District)

Field	Value
name	Birks
photo	Birks_from_Arnison_Crag.jpg
photo_caption	Birks seen across Hag Beck from Arnison Crag, 1 km to the NE.
elevation_m	622
prominence_m	19
parent_peak	St Sunday Crag
listing	Nuttall, Wainwright
location	Cumbria, England
range	Lake District, Eastern Fells
grid_ref_UK	NY380143
topo	OS Landranger 90 OS Explorer 5
map	United Kingdom Lake District
map_caption	Location in Lake District, UK
coordinates

Birks is a fell in the English Lake District situated two kilometres south west of the village of Patterdale in the Eastern Fells. The fells summit sits on a shoulder of the north east ridge of the higher and better known fell of St Sunday Crag, by which it is dominated, walkers often pass over the top of Birks either climbing or descending from the larger fell. The fell's name means a place where Birch trees predominate.

Topography

Birks reaches a height of 622 m and is characterised by a grassy summit ridge which has precipitous craggy slopes to the north and west which fall away to the valley of Grisedale, its southern flank is steep and grassy and ends in the valley of Deepdale and to the north east the main ridge descends towards Patterdale over Black Crag and through Glenamara Park.

Birks is regarded by guide book writers as an unspectacular fell, it has 19 m of prominence from St Sunday Crag and therefore qualifies as a Nuttall, while Alfred Wainwright gives the fell a separate chapter in his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells because "it is sufficiently well defined to deserve a separate name".

Geology

The principal rocks of the summit area are the pebbly sandstones of the Blind Cove Member. The flanks carry andesite sills and volcaniclastic sandstone.

Ascents

The fell is always climbed from the Patterdale valley, with no other starting point being viable. The ascent is a pleasant walk through the wooded Glenamara Park along a footpath which leaves Patterdale and follows Hag Beck and then a ruined dry stone wall to the summit. An alternative route goes via Thornhow End and finds a way through Black Crags at attain the top of the fell. Most walkers who climb Birks will continue on to St Sunday Crag which is a comfortable climb of about 240 m with a few small dips on the ridge.

Summit

The highlight of the view from the summit is a good view of the lower reach of Ullswater.

References

A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, Eastern Fells, Alfred Wainwright
The Mountains of England and Wales, John and Anne Nuttall
British Geological Survey: 1:50,000 series maps, England & Wales Sheet 29: BGS (1999)

References

[[British Geological Survey]]: 1:50,000 series maps, ''England & Wales Sheet 29'': BGS (1999)

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

fells-of-the-lake-district nuttalls patterdale

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