Graystones is a

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of M ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

. It lies in the

North Western Fells The North Western Fells are a part of the Cumbrian Mountains in the Lake District of England. Including such favourites as Catbells and Grisedale Pike, they occupy an oval area beneath the Buttermere and Borrowdale valley systems. The North We ...

region and is one of the peaks on the ridge which encircles the valley of Aiken Beck.

Name

According to

Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright Order of the British Empire, MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalking, fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume ''Pictorial ...

the name Graystones properly refers only to the summit, but he then chose to apply it to the whole fell in his influential ''

Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells ''A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'' is a series of seven books by A. Wainwright, detailing the fells (the local word for hills and mountains) of the Lake District in northwest England. Written over a period of 13 years from 1952, they ...

''.

: ''

A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells ''A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'' is a series of seven books by A. Wainwright, detailing the fells (the local word for hills and mountains) of the Lake District in northwest England. Written over a period of 13 years from 1952, they ...

, Book 6, The North Western Fells'': Westmorland Gazette (1964): Wainwright stated that the hill is correctly known as Kirk Fell, not to be confused with

Kirk Fell Kirk Fell is a fell in the Western part of the English Lake District. It is situated between Great Gable and Pillar on the long ring of fells surrounding the valley of Ennerdale, and also stands over Wasdale to the south. However, it is s ...

Wasdale Wasdale (; traditionally ) is a valley and civil parish in the western part of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Irt flows through the valley to its estuary at Ravenglass. A large part of the main valley floor is ...

. Some guidebooks however take Graystones to be the eastern summit and Kirk Fell the western top at 1,437 ft.Bill Birkett: ''Complete Lakeland Fells'': Collins Willow (1994): This view is reinforced by the placing of the names on the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

1:25000 series map.

Topography

The North Western Fells occupy the area between the rivers Derwent and Cocker, a broadly oval swathe of hilly country, elongated on a north-south axis. Two roads cross from east to west, dividing the fells into three convenient groups. The most northerly sector, rising between

Whinlatter Pass The Whinlatter Pass is a mountain pass in the Lake District in Cumbria, England. It is located on the B5292 road linking Braithwaite, to the west of Keswick, with High Lorton to the south of Cockermouth. To the north the pass is flanked ...

and the Vale of Embleton, includes Graystones. The highest ground in this northern sector lies on a ridge running from the Vale of Lorton in the west to the shore of

Bassenthwaite Lake Bassenthwaite Lake is a body of water in the Lake District in North West England, near the town of Keswick. It has an area of , making the fourth largest of the lakes in the region. The lake has a length of approximately long and maximum wid ...

in the east. In this direction the fells on the ridge are Graystones,

Broom Fell Broom Fell is a hill with the status of a List of Wainwrights, Wainwright in the English Lake District. It lies on a ridge connecting Lord's Seat and Graystones. Alfred Wainwright provided it's status as a separate fell in his influential guidebo ...

Lord's Seat Lord's Seat is a fell in the English Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is fam ...

and Barf.

Whinlatter Whinlatter is a small fell in the north west of the English Lake District, just north of the Whinlatter Pass. It is easily climbed from the top of the Whinlatter Pass, through the Forestry England plantations. The Whinlatter Visitor's Centre, a ...

is an outlier to the south. Gentle grassy slopes rise up from the wide Vale of Lorton to the western (Kirk Fell) top. A little to the east across a slight depression is Graystones summit. The ridge then narrows to cross the long saddle of Widow Hause en route for Broom Fell. To the south of the fell are Blaze Beck and its tributary, Aiken Beck. These are joined by Sware Gill, a small stream running down from the

col A col is the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks; a mountain pass or saddle. COL, CoL or col may also refer to: Computers * Caldera OpenLinux, a defunct Linux distribution * , an HTML element specifying a column * A collision sig ...

between Kirk Fell and Graystones. The south eastern slopes of the fell and the entire southern flank of Widow Hause are dressed with the conifers of the Darling How Plantation. Deep within the woods is Spout Force, a fine waterfall on Aiken Beck. The northern slopes run slowly down towards Embleton High Common and the vast morass of Wythop Moss. To the north west is Harrot (958 ft), a good viewpoint for Lorton and

Cockermouth Cockermouth is a market town and civil parish in the Cumberland unitary authority area of Cumbria, England. The name refers to the town's position by the confluence of the River Cocker into the River Derwent. At the 2021 census, the built u ...

Geology

The predominant rock is the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

Kirkstile Formation of laminated

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...

and mudstone. The southern slopes show evidence of the

greywacke Greywacke or graywacke ( ) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness (6–7 on Mohs scale), dark color, and Sorting (sediment), poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or sand-size Lith ...

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

turbidities of the Loweswater Formation. There are also small intrusions of

lamprophyre Lamprophyres () are uncommon, small-volume ultrapotassic igneous rocks primarily occurring as dikes, lopoliths, laccoliths, stocks, and small intrusions. They are alkaline silica- undersaturated mafic or ultramafic rocks with high magnesium o ...

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

Summit

Graystones summit is grassy, the highest point marked by a slight upthrust in the underlying rock. It lies within a few yards of the end of the wall rising from Widow Hause. A

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

has been erected on the western slopes of Kirk Fell. The slopes are too shallow to give any remarkable view, but the Loweswater Fells and the tops surrounding

Coledale Hause Hill passes of the Lake District were originally used by people in one valley travelling to another nearby without having to go many miles around a steep ridge of intervening hills. Historically, in the Lake District of northwest England, trave ...

can all be seen. More distant there are glimpses of

Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is traditionally considered to be the List of Wainwrights, fourth-highest peak but depending on what topographic prominence is thought to be significant is also ...

and

Helvellyn Helvellyn (; possible #Names, meaning: ''pale yellow moorland'') is a mountain in the English Lake District, the highest point of the Helvellyn range, a north–south line of mountains to the north of Ambleside, between the lakes of Thirlmere a ...

, together with a panorama of the

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

coast.

Ascents

The north western approach from Armaside is via Harrot and Kirk Fell. From the north Tom Rudd Beck can be followed from Embleton. The shortest route is from Scawgill Bridge on the Whinlatter Pass road, following the remains of walls and fences direct to the summit.

References

{{Lake District North West Fells of the Lake District