This is a list of Marilyn hills and mountains in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
and surrounding islands and
sea stacks.
Marilyns are defined as peaks with a
prominence
In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...
of or more, regardless of height or any other merit (e.g.
topographic isolation
The topographic isolation of a summit is the minimum geographical distance, horizontal distance to a point of equal elevation, representing a radius of dominance in which the peak is the highest point. It can be calculated for small hills and is ...
, as used in
Munros
A Munro (; ) is defined as a mountain in Scotland with a height over , and which is on the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) official list of Munros; there is no explicit topographical prominence requirement. The best known Munro is Ben Nevi ...
).
Thus, Marilyns can be mountains, with a height above , or relatively small hills. there were 2,010 recorded Marilyns.
Definition
The Marilyn classification was created by Alan Dawson in his 1992 book ''The Relative Hills of Britain''. The name Marilyn was coined by Dawson as a punning contrast to the ''
Munro
A Munro (; ) is defined as a mountain in Scotland with a height over , and which is on the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) official list of Munros; there is no explicit topographical prominence requirement. The best known Munro is Ben Nevi ...
'' classification of Scottish mountains above , but which has no explicit prominence threshold, being
homophonous
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...
with (Marilyn) ''
Monroe
Monroe or Monroes may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Monroe (surname)
* Monroe (given name)
* James Monroe, 5th President of the United States
* Marilyn Monroe, actress and model
Places United States
* Monroe, Arkansas, an unincorp ...
''.
The list of Marilyns was extended to Ireland by Clem Clements.
Marilyn was the first of several subsequent British Isles classifications that rely solely on prominence, including the
P600s,
the
HuMPs, and the
TuMPs.
Topographic prominence is more difficult to estimate than topographic elevation, requiring surveys of each contour line around a peak, and therefore lists using prominence are subject to revision.
Although many of the islands' largest mountains, including
Ben Nevis
Ben Nevis ( ; , ) is the highest mountain in Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the British Isles. Ben Nevis stands at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Highland region of Lochaber, close to the town of Fort William.
The mount ...
,
Carrauntoohil
Carrauntoohil, Carrauntoohill or Carrantuohill ( ; , meaning "Tuathal's sickle") is the Lists of mountains in Ireland, highest mountain in Ireland at . It is on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, close to the centre of Ireland's highest mo ...
,
Scafell Pike
Scafell Pike () is a mountain in the Lake District region of Cumbria, England. It has an elevation of above sea level, making it the highest and the most prominent mountain in England. The mountain is part of the Scafell massif, an extinct v ...
and
Snowdon
Snowdon (), or (), is a mountain in Snowdonia in North Wales. It has an elevation of above sea level, which makes it both the highest mountain in Wales and the highest in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. Snowdon i ...
, are Marilyns, many other large peaks such as
Cairn Gorm
Cairn Gorm () is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. It is part of the Cairngorms range and wider Grampian Mountains. With a summit elevation of Height above sea level, above sea level, Cairn Gorm is classed as a Munro and is the sixt ...
, a number of Munros, and well-known hills such as
Bowfell, the
Langdale Pikes
Great Langdale is a valley in the Lake District National Park in North West England, the epithet "Great" distinguishing it from the neighbouring valley of Little Langdale. Langdale is also the name of a valley in the Howgill Fells, elsewhere ...
and
Carnedd Dafydd, are not Marilyns because they do not have sufficient height relative to the surrounding terrain (i.e. they have taller "parents"). Not all Marilyns are even hills in the usual sense:
Crowborough
Crowborough is a town and civil parish in East Sussex, England, in the Weald at the edge of Ashdown Forest and the highest town in the High Weald AONB, High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
It is located south-west of Royal Tunbridge ...
() sits in a town in East Sussex, whilst
Bishop Wilton Wold highest point of the Yorkshire Wolds () lies alongside the
A166 road. At the other extreme are
Stac Lee () and
Stac an Armin (), the two highest
sea stacks
A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. ...
in the
British Isles
The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...
, in the
St Kilda archipelago, west of the Scottish mainland.
, there were 2,010 Marilyns in the British Isles, with 1,218 Marilyns in Scotland, including 202 of the 282 Scottish Munros; Munros with a Marilyn–prominence are sometimes called ''Real Munros''.
There were a further 454 Marilyns in Ireland, 174 in England, 159 in Wales, and 5 in the Isle of Man.
On 13 October 2014 Rob Woodall and Eddie Dealtry became the first people to climb all 1,557 Marilyns in Great Britain. , 11 ''Marilynists'' had climbed "all hills
f Great Britainthat were classed as Marilyns at the time they recorded finishing the list" while, , 275 had entered the ''Marilyn Hall of Fame'' by climbing over 600 Marilyns.
Coverage

, the list of 2,010 British Isles Marilyns contained:
By height and prominence
This list was downloaded from the ''
Database of British and Irish Hills
The mountains and hills of the British Isles are categorised into various lists based on different combinations of elevation, prominence, and other criteria such as isolation. These lists are used for peak bagging, whereby hillwalkers attempt ...
'' ("DoBIH") in October 2018, and are peaks the DoBIH marks as Marilyns ("M"). As topological prominence is complex to measure, these tables are subject to revision over time, and should not be amended or updated unless the entire DoBIH data is re-downloaded. The tables are structured to show rankings by height and prominence over the entire British Isles, or by region.
Updates
Since the table was downloaded, the following changes have been made to the list of recognised Marilyns:
*Added:
Rhinog Fach, Wales, August 2021 (, prominence )
*Removed:
Cheriton Hill, Kent (, prominence )
*Removed:
Giur-bheinn, Islay (, prominence )
Table
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
DoBIH codes
The
DoBIH
The mountains and hills of the British Isles are categorised into various lists based on different combinations of elevation, prominence, and other criteria such as isolation. These lists are used for peak bagging, whereby hillwalkers attempt ...
uses the following codes for the various
classifications of mountains and hills in the British Isles, which many of the above peaks also fall into:
suffixes:
= twin
See also
*
Lists of mountains and hills in the British Isles
The mountains and hills of the British Isles are categorised into various lists based on different combinations of elevation, topographic prominence, prominence, and other criteria such as topographic isolation, isolation. These lists are used f ...
*
List of mountains of the British Isles by height
This article provides access to lists of mountains in Britain and Ireland by height and by prominence. (See Lists of mountains below.) Height and prominence are the most important metrics for the classifications of mountains by the UIAA; with ...
*
Lists of mountains and hills in the British Isles
The mountains and hills of the British Isles are categorised into various lists based on different combinations of elevation, topographic prominence, prominence, and other criteria such as topographic isolation, isolation. These lists are used f ...
*
Lists of mountains in Ireland
In these lists of mountains in Ireland, those within Northern Ireland, or on the Republic of Ireland – United Kingdom border, are marked with an asterisk, while the rest are within the Republic of Ireland. Where mountains are ranked by height ...
*
List of Munro mountains
*
List of Murdo mountains
*
List of Furth mountains in the British Isles
This is a list of Furth mountains in Britain and Ireland by height. Furths are defined as mountains that meet the classification criteria to be a Scottish Munro, including being over in elevation, but which are ''furth'' of (i.e. "outside" of) ...
*
List of P600 mountains in the British Isles
This is a list of P600 mountains in Britain and Ireland by height. A P600 is defined as a mountain with a topographic prominence above , regardless of elevation or any other merits (e.g. topographic isolation); this is a similar approach to that ...
Notes
References
External links
The Database of British and Irish Hills (DoBIH) the largest database of British Isles mountains
Hill Bagging UK & Ireland the searchable interface for the DoBIH
MountainViews: The Irish Mountain Website the DoBIH for Ireland (Republic and North)
the searchable database for the MountainViews
The Relative Hills of Britain a website dedicated to mountain and hill classification
Google Earth .kmz fileshowing all Marilyns
{{DEFAULTSORT:List Marilyn Mountains in the British Isles
Marilyns
Articles with OS grid coordinates