Little Mell Fell

Little Mell Fell

Height: 505m (1,657ft) 

Prominence: 226m (741ft) 

Region: Eastern Fells 

Classifications: Wainwright, Marilyn, Birkett 

Summit feature: Trig pillar

Times climbed: 1 

Related trip report:

The Mell Fells & Gowbarrow Fell - 13/01/2015

The summit trig pillar on Little Mell Fell

What Wainwright said:

"Little Mell Fell is an outlier of the Helvellyn range and the last Lakeland fell in the northeast before the high country falls away. It is an uninspiring, unattractive, bare and rounded hump - the sublime touch that made a wonderland of the District overlooked Little Mell - few walkers halt their hurried entrance into the sanctuary to climb it".

Little Mell Fell stands to the north of Ullswater near the village of Watermillock and is connected to other high ground by a narrow col to the south. It stands just to the east of the rather similar Great Mell Fell. Both fells are of a similar size and appearance. Both appear relatively isolated, both have a smooth, rounded outline.

Mell Fell is found in the earlier form Melfel (1279) and is probably derived from the Brittonic (Cumbric) word męl (c.f. Welsh moel), a bare hill, with Fell as a later addition. The two Mell Fells have been distinguished as Great and Little since at least the fifteenth century.

The summit is at the top of a rounded, grassy dome and is marked by an Ordnance Survey triangulation column. There is a good all-round view, though it is robbed of foreground by the gentle curvature of the grassy summit.

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