Pen-y-ghent

22 miles away from Skipton, near Horton in Ribblesdale.

Penyghent is the nearest of the "three peaks" of the Yorkshire Dales, the other two being Ingleboro and Whernside. Keen walkers climb all three in the same day, in the 'Three Peaks Walk', a classic Yorkshire walk. Set in the heart of the scenery of the Yorkshire Dales National Park it's 23 miles round the full circuit and for those wanting to collect the badge you have exactly 12 hours to complete the whole walk. Starting from Horton in Ribblesdale the walk covers all three peaks, the hills of Penyghent, Whernside and Ingleborough.

"Ingleborough, Pendle Hill and Pen-y-ghent are highest hills 'tween Scotland and Trent", so a Pennine saying goes. This is not strictly true, Cross Fell in the Pennines is higher, as are many of the Lake District Fells. Pen-y-ghent, the 2,273 feet high hill near Settle, North Yorkshire is however one of the most famous peaks of the Pennines. Pen-y-ghent is one of the oldest names in the Pennines and a clue to the origin of the name may be gained by looking it up in the Atlas. Here we can find Pen-y-fan Pen y Gadair, Pen y Gaer, Pen y Parc, Pen y Rhwbyn and many other names beginning in this similar fashion. In this list Pen-y-ghent is very much the odd one out because it is found in England - all the others are Welsh. Pen-y-ghent's name is Welsh and is a reminder of the days of the Ancient British when most of the country we now call England spoke a language closley akin to Welsh. Pen usually means hill and y is the definite article 'the' so its name means the something hill although the order of words is different to the way it would be structured in English. The meaning of ghent is however unknown. It is known that a number of Welsh Kingdoms notably Elmet and Loidis survived in the western part of Yorkshire into early Saxon times and the name of Pen-y-ghent may be a throwback to these times. It is not unusual however for English hills to retain the word pen, which is why we have Penshaw Hill near Sunderland and Pendle Hill in Lancashire.

Related pages:

CragFace's Penyghent walk page

More photos of
Penyghent

Search the photo
gallery