Marilyns, HuMPs and other hills

I’ve also started to walk up the Marilyns, which is the name coined for hills that are 500 feet higher than the land around them.   There are 1552 of these in Great Britain from Cornwall to the North of Scotland.  These are described in the book by Alan Dawson ‘The Relative Hills of Britain’ and on the website at: . http://bubl.ac.uk/org/tacit/marilyns/  the name no doubt stems from the fact that Scottish hills over 3000 feet are called Monroes.

The book that lists the UK Marilyns

To enter the Marilyn Hall of Fame, walkers have to have completed 600 Marilyns.

More recently a new series of hills has been devised, the HuMPs.  These are hills with a clear drop of 100 meters all round, hence called HuMPs (hundred meter promontories). There are just short of 3000 of these and they are listed on the hill-bagging website and now published in the book More Relative Hills of Britain.  I suggested that they be given the snappier title of Monicas the keep the presendential theme going i.e. Marilyn Monroe - Kennedy, Monica Lewinsky - Clinton, but that may have been too subtle for people or deemed inappropriate.

To enter the HuMPs Hall of Fame, walkers have to have completed 1200 HuMPs.

The book that lists the UK HuMPs


There are also the Deweys, hills over 500 high. I tend to bag these more if I am passing rather than make special excursions to. 

The last series I go for are the County tops.  These probably deserve a separate page.