Wainwright Routes - Irton Pike Route One

Irton Pike - Route One

Start - Irton Park NY 122 012

Distance - 1 mile

Ascent - 410 feet

Time - 35 minutes

A parking area on the Santon Bridge ~ Eskdale Green road is the starting point for this walk

Before embarking on the short climb to Irton Pike we walk back along the road towards Santon Bridge for about 250 yards to visit a memorial which AW mentions in the Irton Pike chapter in his guide to the Outlying Fells

Irton Pike from the William Malkinson memorial

A short distance above the car park is the start of a path which leads to Wasdale

Looking up to the summit of Irton Pike from the path which initially follows a forestry track through Ainhouse Plantation. The lower slopes of the fell which were clear felled a few years ago have been re-planted .....

..... and the lower section of the track has been widened since our last visit

A clearing in the plantation gives a brief view over to Crook Crag and Green Crag

A third of a mile from the roadside a path leads off to the left which enables a slightly shorter route to the summit but we continue straight ahead on the path to Wasdale

We reach the the top of the plantation at a gate and stile which gives access to Mecklin Park

Mecklin Park, an extensive landscape of gorse bushes and boulders

Muncaster Fell over the top of Ainhouse Plantation from Mecklin Park

To the left of the path is a 'heap of stones' which puzzled AW when he wrote his guide to the Outlying Fells. Later editions of the OS maps identify it as a prehistoric Cairn Ring, perhaps dating back to the early bronze age. There are at least 30 more cairns nearby, some of them funerary. The Mecklin Park Cairnfield is a Scheduled Ancient Monument