The Historic County Tops
The website lists the traditional historic counties and their highest points above sea level.
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The Historic County Tops by area
Click on a hill total in the right column of the table below for a map showing hills and totals you have climbed from this list in the corresponding area.
Display map of The Historic County Tops with all alternative geographical area types ▶
About The Historic County Tops
Show a panel explaining who created the list and why, relevant books, plus the latest updates:
Why was this list created?
Though the historic county boundaries still exist, local government administrative changes have been largely adopted by map-makers and in road-signage.
The changes to administrative areas make the historic county tops a more satisfactory list for bagging, as they are unchangeable.The historic County Tops constitute a satisfactory list for bagging, as they are unchangeable.
How are these hills defined?
For Great Britain and Northern Ireland the historic counties are those defined in the “The Historic Counties Standard” produced by The Historic Counties Trust. The historic county boundaries available as an overlay on the maps used on this website make use of data provided by the the Historic County Borders Project.
For the Republic of Ireland the historic counties are those which remained with boundaries largely unchanged until the formation of City and County Councils in 2001. You can separately view The Irish Historic County Tops.
League tables
View League tables for The Historic County Tops
For Relative Hills including Marilyns, Humps, Tumps and Simms Halls of Fame are published each year.
Latest changes to this list
Notable differences to later county top lists
Due to county boundary changes in 1889, a number of the historic county tops are in different locations from the subsequent administrative county tops where the county has the same name.
The historic county top of Warwickshire is not the summit of Ebrington Hill (hill 5384) which is in historic Gloucestershire, but is very close about 30m to the south on the track which follows the old Warwickshire/Gloucestershire boundary.
The historic county top of Cambridgeshire is Castle Camps airfield (hill 18929), not Great Chishill (hill 5456) which is in historic Essex.
The historic county top of Hampshire is Walbury Hill (hill 2906), not Pilot Hill (hill 5461). The historic Hampshire/Berkshire boundary ran close to the summit of Walbury Hill.
The historic county top of Berkshire is not the summit of Walbury Hill (hill 2906), but is about 200m to the north on the track which follows the old Hampshire/Berkshire boundary.
The historic county top of Selkirkshire is Dun Rig (hill 1845), not Broad Law (hill 1830) which is in historic Peeblesshire.
There is a separate historic county top for Cromartyshire Sgurr Mor (hill 1040). Cromartyshire was merged with Ross-shire in 1890 to form Ross and Cromarty, with its higher county top Carn Eighe (hill 803).
(With thanks to James Steel for his research and advice)
List of The Historic County Tops and ascents
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Note that if you sort by date and see dates of '01/01/1900', this indicates that when you logged or imported data for this hill, no date or an invalid date was assigned for this ascent e.g. '00/00/0000'. The 1900 date is used in this table since it's required for the correct sort order. You can edit the ascents to the correct date or year, if known, to avoid this and to get correct annual totals in 'My Progress'.
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