Drawing 36: The Scafell range from Pillar
Direction of view: SE
Notes: The Ordnance Survey column makes an unmistakeable foreground. Some other rocks in the foreground are also identifiable, particularly a dark, pointed rock on the extreme right of the sketch.
This view appears on page 100 of Wainwright in Lakeland, and three times as a photo: Fellwalking with a Camera page 114, Memoirs of a Fellwanderer page 196 (where it is also shown as a sketch), and the 17th photo in Fellwanderer. It is, of course, the same photo that appears in all three books.
Comments: I took this picture on 23rd July 2014 on a walk with Peter Watson (see Drawing 214 for an account of this day). There were quite a few people on the summit of Pillar, but none in the line of sight for this view, fortunately. The Scafells were slightly hazy, however.
A trig pillar was first used in the retriangulation of Great Britain on 18 April 1936. On that day, a group of surveyors gathered around a white concrete pillar in a field in Cold Ashby and began the retriangulation of Great Britain. The pillars were designed by Brigadier Martin Hotine to provide a solid base for the theodolites used by the survey teams to improve the accuracy of the readings obtained, and over 6,500 were erected across the country.
