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List of Marilyns in the British Isles

Mountains and hills with prominence over 150 m From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of Marilyns in the British Isles
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A Marilyn is a hill or mountain in the United Kingdom, Ireland or surrounding islands with a prominence of at least 150 metres (492 ft), regardless of its absolute height or other characteristics such as topographic isolation.[1]

Quick facts Marilyn, Highest point ...

Marilyns may include true mountains (with heights above 600 m (2,000 ft)) as well as smaller hills, as long as they meet the prominence criterion.[2]

As of July 2023, there were 2,010 recorded Marilyns.[1]

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Definition

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The Marilyn classification was created by Alan Dawson in his 1992 book The Relative Hills of Britain.[3] The name was coined as a punning contrast to the Munro classification of Scottish mountains above 3,000 ft (914.4 m), which has no explicit prominence threshold, being homophonous with Monroe.[4] The concept was later extended to Ireland by E. D. "Clem" Clements.[5]

Marilyns were the first of several British Isles classifications based solely on topographic prominence, including the P600s,[6] the HuMPs, and the TuMPs.[7] Determining prominence is more complex than measuring absolute elevation, requiring surveys of each contour line around a peak; therefore, lists based on prominence are periodically revised.[8][9]

Although many of the largest mountains in the islands, such as Ben Nevis, Carrauntoohil, Scafell Pike and Snowdon, are Marilyns, others—including Cairn Gorm and some Munros, as well as hills like Bowfell, the Langdale Pikes, and Carnedd Dafydd—are not, as they lack sufficient relative height compared to nearby higher "parent" peaks.

As of July 2023, there were 2,010 Marilyns in the British Isles: 1,218 in Scotland (including 202 of the 282 Scottish Munros; Munros with Marilyn-prominence are sometimes called Real Munros), 454 in Ireland, 174 in England, 159 in Wales, and 5 in the Isle of Man.[1] On 13 October 2014, Rob Woodall and Eddie Dealtry became the first people to climb all 1,557 Marilyns in Great Britain.[10][11] As of 2022, 11 Marilynists had climbed all Marilyns then listed in Great Britain,[12] and, As of December 2019, 275 had entered the Marilyn Hall of Fame by climbing over 600 Marilyns.[13]

In June 2025, Dawson published The Revised Relative Hills of Britain: The Marilyns (Pedantic Press, ISBN 978-1-9163662-5-1), listing 1,550 Marilyns in Britain (excluding Ireland and the Isle of Man) and 99 hills which narrowly fail to qualify (submarilyns).[14] As of June 2025, this list is used by the Database of British and Irish Hills to define a Marilyn, with a separate category for The Irish and Manx Marilyns.[15][16]

Examples of Marilyns

Marilyns include some of the largest mountains in the British Isles as well as relatively modest hills:

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Coverage

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Bishop Wilton Wold (248 m Marilyn)
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Stac an Armin (196 m Marilyn)

As of April 2020, the list of 2,010 British Isles Marilyns contained:

  1. 202 of the 282 Scottish Munros (often called Real Munros), and none of the 227 Scottish Munro Tops (i.e. no Munro Tops are Marilyns);
  2. All 222 Scottish Corbetts, all 219 Scottish Grahams, and 31 of the 118 Scottish New Donalds;
  3. 872 of the 2,754 British Isles Simms;[a]
  4. 203 of the 525 England, Wales, and Ireland Hewitts;
  5. 43 of the 541 Lake District Birketts (of which 39 are Wainwrights);
  6. 163 of the 407 Irish Arderins;
  7. All of the 120 P600 ("major") mountains in the British Isles;
  8. 14 of the 34 England, Wales, and Ireland Furths.
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By height and prominence

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This list was downloaded from the Database of British and Irish Hills ("DoBIH") in October 2018, and are peaks the DoBIH marks as Marilyns ("M").[b] As topological prominence is complex to measure, these tables are subject to revision over time, and should not be amended or updated unless the entire DoBIH data is re-downloaded. The tables are structured to show rankings by height and prominence over the entire British Isles, or by region.

Updates

Since the table was downloaded, the following changes have been made to the list of recognised Marilyns:[21]

  • Added: Rhinog Fach, Wales, August 2021 (711.67 m (2,334.9 ft), prominence 151 m (495 ft))[22]
  • Removed: Cheriton Hill, Kent (187.7 m (616 ft), prominence 149.7 m (491 ft))[23]
  • Removed: Giur-bheinn, Islay (317.4 m (1,041 ft), prominence 148.9 m (489 ft))[24]

Table

  Highest peak per region.
More information Height Total, Prom. Total ...
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Bibliography

  • Alan Dawson (1997). The Hewitts and Marilyns of Wales. TACit Press. ISBN 0-9522680-6-X.
  • Clem Clements (1998). The Hewitts and Marilyns of Ireland. TACit Press. ISBN 0-9522680-8-6.
  • Alan Dawson (1997). The Hewitts and Marilyns of England. TACit Press. ISBN 0-9522680-7-8.
  • Alan Dawson (1992). The Relative Hills of Britain. Cicerone Press. ISBN 978-1852840686.

DoBIH codes

The DoBIH uses the following codes for the various classifications of mountains and hills in the British Isles, which many of the above peaks also fall into:[25][26]


prefixes:
  • s sub
  • x deleted

suffixes:
= twin

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See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marilyns.

Notes

  1. [a]
    It does not include the two peaks whose prominence rounds up to 150 m
  2. [b]
    The Database of British and Irish Hills ("DoBIH") is the most referenced database for the classification of peaks in the British Isles,[7] and the DoBIH is licensed under a "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License".[20]
  3. [c]
    Sorrel Hill height is 599.5 m, and thus below the 600.0 m threshold for a Simm

References

External links

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