Great Coum

About Great Coum

Rising as a broad, grassy shoulder above Dentdale, this understated Marilyn offers a surprisingly wild sense of isolation. Its plateau-like summit, marked by a drystone wall, provides an exceptional vantage point for the Howgill Fells and the nearby Lake District massifs, far removed from the busier Three Peaks.

Key Statistics

Find It

Did You Know?

• •The name 'Coum' derives from the Old Welsh 'cwm', meaning a hollow or bowl-shaped valley, a reference to the deep glacial scoops like Deepdale that carve into the hill's northern and eastern flanks.
• •A large, unassuming boulder known as the County Stone sits on the hill's western slopes, marking the historic meeting point of the traditional counties of Lancashire, Westmorland, and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
• •Great Coum is the historic county top of Lancashire; although administrative boundaries have shifted, it remains the highest point within the traditional borders of the Red Rose county.
• •The lower slopes overlook the quarries of 'Dent Marble', a fossil-rich black limestone once highly prized for decorative masonry and exported as far as the Russian Tsar’s palaces and railway stations in Australia.
• •The western edge of the summit ridge drops away at the Crag of Blea Moor, offering a dramatic, vertical perspective down into the narrow, steep-sided valley of Barbondale.
• •On a clear day, the summit offers a 'greatest hits' of Northern English peaks, including the distinctive flat-topped Ingleborough to the south and the jagged skyline of the Coniston Fells to the west.
• •The summit plateau is so relentlessly level that the high drystone wall crossing it serves as the only reliable landmark; without it, walkers in a mist might easily wander into a different county before they realize they've left the summit.