Lake District
Whatshaw Common East Top
484M
1588FT
About Whatshaw Common East Top
Located on the remote moorland plateau west of Shap, this quiet Synge summit offers a lonely, untamed character far from the busy central fells. The terrain is typical of the Westmorland limestone fringe—rough grass and peat—providing wide, expansive views across Wet Sleddale Reservoir toward the higher silhouettes of Branstree and Selside Pike.
Key Statistics
Rank
451st Highest in Region
Parent Range
Far Eastern Fells
Prominence
?
16m
Nearest Town
Shap Rural
Geology
The ground here belongs to the Coniston Group, consisting of ancient layers of sand and mud that have hardened into solid stone.
Classifications
Find It
OS Grid Reference
NY547062
Latitude
54.4497°N
Longitude
2.6991°W
Did You Know?
- •The name likely derives from the Old English 'shaw' (scaga), meaning a small wood or thicket, suggesting that these now-barren eastern slopes once held more substantial tree cover.
- •The hill overlooks Sleddale Hall to the south, a remote farmhouse that gained cult fame as 'Crow Crag' in the 1987 film Withnail and I.
- •To the east, the view is dominated by the M6 motorway cutting through the landscape at Shap Summit—the highest point of the English motorway network—with the distinctive rounded shapes of the Howgill Fells rising beyond.
- •It is classified as a Synge, a list compiled by Tim Synge in his 1995 guidebook that aimed to catalogue every distinct summit within the Lake District National Park over 1,000 feet.
- •Walking here is a lesson in local geography; the lack of defined paths and the prevalence of mossy hollows ensures you spend as much time inspecting the peat as you do the horizon.