Hill Walkers Register

The Hills Of England, Wales And Ireland

Fancy a hill walking challenge?  Fed up with climbing those same old favourite mountains?  Ever thought that there are many more worthwhile peaks to climb out there?  Are you keen to explore in depth the various mountain areas of Britain?  Want more of a structure to your hillwalking days, a goal, a long-term aim?  If the answer to any of these questions is “yes” then the LDWA’s Hillwalkers’ Register (HR) is for you.

The HR offers a unique service to hillwalkers and peakbaggers.  It provides information and advice to all those wanting to take up a hillwalking challenge of completing one or more of several categories of hills in England, Wales or Ireland (Scotland has its own organisations catering for the Munro and others baggers north of the border).  The HR maintains five Registers of hillwalkers who have ascended all the mountains over 2000ft in England & Wales (there are over 400 of them!), climbed all of the Wainwrights (214 summits) in the Lake District or visited all of the County Tops of England & Wales.  Other Registers include the 500m+ hills (Deweys) of England & Wales as well as the Irish hills.  Over 650 names are currently listed on the Registers.  For some walkers these challenges are a year-long quest (just a few complete them in even less time!), but for most people they represent many happy hillwalking days spread over several years.  When you have completed a list of hills simply fill in a Register Claim Form and send it to the Recorder who will enter your name on the relevant Register and issue you with an (optional) certificate, which is a super memento of your achievement.  Updated Registers are published annually as a supplement in Strider, so that you and your family and friends can proudly see your name in print.  The HR Annual Report is published as a pullout section in Strider every April, and in addition to the updated Registers contains new hill lists and many other items of interest to the hillwalker.  The HR is the most comprehensive source of peakbagging information for England & Wales.

So come along and spice up you hillwalking life.  Take on one of these long-term peakbagging challenges and get to know the upland areas of your country intimately.  No longer need you say when on the summit of Scafell Pike or Snowdon “I wonder what those hills are over there?”

Details of the Hillwalkers’ Register

The Long Distance Walkers Association (LDWA) keeps records of hillwalkers who have completed a "round" of various lists of hills in England, Wales and Ireland (other organisations and individuals, e.g. the Scottish Mountaineering Club [see the SMC website], TACit Press [http://bubl.ac.uk/org/tacit/] and Alan Dawson [email: rhb@rhb.org.uk] keep similar records for Scotland).  The Hillwalkers’ Register (HR) takes the form of Five Registers, which contain the names of those who have completed recognised lists of hills.

The Five Registers

Updated Registers are published every year in the HR Annual Report, which is produced as a mini-magazine and despatched with Strider, the magazine of the LDWA, every April.  The HR Annual Report also contains several articles and many items of interest to the peakbagger and hillwalker.

The most popular Registers are those of the Two Thousand Foot Mountains of England and Wales and the Wainwrights.  Yearly “Tables of Progress” are published in the HR Annual Report for those Registers  (the Irish Registers and the Deweys) that show relatively little annual progress.  A Table of Progress contains data on the number of summits in a list of hills so far climbed by each hillwalker who is actively collecting these hills.

Further general information on the HR will be found in two Strider articles by Alan Castle (Strider 65, April 1993, pp 22 - 25 & Strider 69, August 1994) published at the time the HR was originally set up.

Important Note Regarding Access

Please note that a few of the hills on the Register lists are on private land where there is no legal right of access.  In these cases hillwalkers are reminded that it is ONLY permissible to climb these tops if prior permission has been sought and granted from the landowners.  If access is denied then entry to the HR will still be granted if these hills are omitted from your hill list.  Please inform the HR Recorder of the hills to which you were denied access when you send in your completed Claim Form. If a sign is encountered denying access then please do not ignore this.  Neither the HR nor the LDWA condone irresponsible behaviour in the countryside and do not encourage trespass.  The existence of the Hillwalkers’ Registers is not an encouragement to break the law, interfere with landowners’ privacy or trespass on land to which there is no legal access.  The HR and the LDWA will not be held responsible for any actions that result from ignoring these warnings.

Neither the LDWA nor the HR will accept any responsibility for accidents or other mishaps that may occur in pursuit of the hill and mountain summits on the HR lists.  Safety is the responsibility of the individual and all people attempting these challenges should be sufficiently experienced and adequately equipped.

How to Claim an Entry on the Register

Retrospective claims as well as current ones are acceptable.  There is no time limit.  Please ensure that the claim is signed.  A claimant other than the "completer" will only be acceptable if the latter is deceased (e.g. a friend or relative might like to provide the information).  In this case please provide the full name and address of the claimant, and the date on which the "completer" died.

Claims will only be accepted on an official Register Claim Form. The form consists of a single A4 page, which will only take a few minutes to complete.  One form per person per Register please.  Answers to some of the questions, e.g. date of birth, are optional.  Completed and signed forms must be posted (not emailed back) to the Recorder, who will then record the names of the “completers” on the relevant Registers.  Entry to the Registers is free-of-charge, but for a commemorative certificate please also send a cheque for £2.50, a fee that includes post and packaging in a large stiff envelope (see below).

Claims will be entered on the appropriate Register, which is kept on a computer file, and is the property of the LDWA.  An acknowledgement will only be sent if the claimant includes a stamped self-addressed postcard.  Annually updated Registers, containing the names of all "completers" are published every April in the HR Annual Report despatched with Strider, the magazine of the LDWA (available to members only - Join Online)

HR Certificates
High quality certificates, A4 size, are available from the Recorder.  All those hillwalkers who have satisfied the requirements for entry into the Hillwalkers' Registers are eligible for a certificate.  There are certificates for all the Register categories, viz. the 2000ft Summits of England & Wales, the Wainwrights, the Wainwrights and Outlying Fells, the County Tops of England & Wales, the County Tops of Ireland, the 2000ft Summits of Ireland and the Deweys of England & Wales.  To claim your certificate simply send a cheque for £2.50 per certificate, made out to the L.D.W.A., to the Recorder (no cash or stamps please) and indicate which category certificate you require and your completion date.  The cost includes postage and package in a stiff-carded envelope, so do not send an SAE in this case (but always send an SAE with all other correspondence with the Recorder, please).  It is most convenient if a certificate is requested at the time a completed Claim Form is submitted.

Photographs

The Recorder needs a plentiful supply of photographs in order to illustrate the HR Annual Report.  Shots relating to hillwalking and peakbagging, and particularly those depicting walkers climbing a "2000 Footer", Wainwright, or other Register peak are required.  Photographs of a summit celebration on completing such a round, with champagne in hand, etc, would be particularly welcome, but good general photographs of any of the hills on the Registers are also sought.  Colour prints or slides are acceptable or if supplying digital shots then please post them to the Recorder on a CD (NB do not send them as an email attachment: he is unable to have a Broadband connection and his system cannot cope with such large files).  Please don’t forget to include captions for your shots, and make sure they include the names of the people on the photo, the location, the occasion and the date.  Make sure that the captions are legible, typed if possible or in capitals if hand written (and ensure that the pen used will not smudge to form an unreadable mess!)

Contact Address

The contact address for the HR is: Alan Castle, Recorder - Hillwalkers' Register, Corehead House, Annanwater, Moffat, Dumfriesshire, DG10 9LT.  Email: alancastle@care4free.net