The Wainwrights

Alfred Wainwright hand-drew guidebooks for 214 Lake District fells between 1955-1966. Beautiful books. Obsessive detail. All done in pen and ink.

Those 214 fells became “the Wainwrights” - not by height rule, just because he picked them.

The Difference from Munros

Munros have a rule: over 3,000 feet. Wainwrights? Wainwright included it or he didn’t. The smallest is 290m. The highest is Scafell Pike at 978m.

Makes for more variety. Some are 20-minute strolls. Others are proper mountain days.

Why I Added Them

Had the Munro mapping working. Lake District friends kept asking “can you do Wainwrights?”

Same principle: upload GPS tracks, match to summits, generate map. Just different mountain list.

Turns out Alfred never did GPS obviously. But summit coordinates exist. Close enough.

Starting?

Get up Catbells from Keswick. Classic first Wainwright. Takes 2 hours round trip if you’re slow. Views over Derwentwater.

If you like it, there’s 213 more.

Your Strava tracks will show which ones you’ve done. Upload them here and we’ll plot them.

Note: Wainwright’s original books are worth owning for the drawings alone. Public libraries usually have copies if you want to browse first.