Wherever you find yourself
in the UK – among the Munros of Scotland, the fens of East Anglia,
the rolling moors of the west-country or the suburban sprawl of of a
big city, there‘s a county top on your doorstep waiting to be
discovered.
Ranging from 80m Boring
Field in Huntingdonshire to 1344m Ben Nevis in Inverness-shire, the
91 tops of the historic counties of the UK are a sundry collection
of hills and mountains spanning the length and breadth of England,
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Some rank among the finest
summits in the UK: Ben Lomond, Helvellyn, Pen y Fan, The Cheviot,
Scafell Pike, Slieve Donard and Worcestershire Beacon. Others are
less known, appearing in strange and wonderful places: A military
firing zone in Yorkshire, the tundra plateau of the Cairngorms and a
back garden in south-east London. Every county top has its own
story, whether it is the mystery of the Grey Man of Macdui on Ben
Macdui, the Mass Trespass of 1932 on Kinder Scout or the devastating
wartime death toll on Shropshire’s Brown Clee Hill.
Author Jonny Muir was the
first person to visit them all in one 5000-mile cycling and walking
adventure, over a three-month period, and he shares his preferred
routes, gradings and lots of incidental facts and figures for each
one here.