Mell Fell Medley

Monday 22nd December 2025

After a long and difficult autumn I was excited that it was finally Christmas and I could make my annual pilgrimage to that most delightful of places for walkers, the Lake District. Rather than taking the train, this time I thought I’d drive so after a long journey I made my way to Ullswater parking at the Hause, the top of the road that passes between Watermillock and Matterdale End. My goal on this short stay in the Lake District was return to the hills, known as fells, that I hadn’t visited for a long time with my first goal being to visit the fells in the north eastern corner called Little and Great Mell Fell following a walk on the O.S. Maps app called Mell Fell Medley. I was at the start of the path up Little Mell Fell, which I had visited only once before back in 2008 and neglected all these years mainly because it is very small and inconsequential, but because Wainwright devoted a whole chapter to it in his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells, then it is obligatory to waste time climbing it. The ground was very muddy after the large amount of rain that the Lake District had recently endured but it wasn’t long before I had climbed the short, steep slope to the top. It was great to be walking and with the sun shining, though it was a bit hazy with cloud capping most of the fells, so the best views were probably towards the neighbouring fells. 

Previously I had gone straight up Little Mell Fell and back down the same way, but this time after reaching the summit I turned west to head towards Great Mell Fell crossing a series of gates and wire fences despite this being open access land. Eventually I reached a narrow road where I took a path across the shallow valley to reach another road and the start of the path up Great Mell Fell, which was much more interesting than the one on Little Mell Fell, and more prolonged, passing through bands of rock and trees on a good path until the gradient eased over the broad, waterlogged top. It felt great to be on top of a hill and I realised that the last time I had been this high was on the Cambrian Way more than six months earlier and my reward was a fabulous view towards Blencathra, despite the haze and cloud. Except for the two weeks I had spent last summer crossing Scotland and down the Northumberland coast I had hardly done any walking in the last six months, so I was feeling very emotional to be back in the Lake District and doing what I love. I dropped to the ground a short distance down the western slope from the summit to have my lunch and gaze in awe and wonder at my surroundings absorbing the feeling of being back in the Lake District.

The heat that I had generated during my ascent soon left me so when I set off to head back down the fell I had to don extra clothing including gloves and a woolly hat. A walker is always regulating their body temperature through many different ways from taking layers off and on all the way down to fine adjustments of your zip. Climbing a hill generates a lot of heat that soon dissipates when you stop, which needs to be carefully managed. I love it. Eventually I returned to the road where I had started my ascent of Great Mell Fell and now I headed south along the road branching right and then left to head towards the third fell in the Mell Fell Medley. Although there are only two Mell Fells, it is possible to add a third fell in Gowbarrow Fell, which is not far away and easily included. The road soon brought me to Ulcat Row below the impressive northern crags of Gowbarrow Fell, but there is no path up the steep slopes so I had to follow a path that passes below going all the way round Norman Crag and now I felt like I was really in the Lake District as the path passed over the rocks below the crags and eventually brought me to the western slopes and the path that climbs to the summit beside a wall. This was a typical National Trust, heavily manufactured, path that felt even more Lakeland, though Wainwright was dismissive of this route up saying it was less attractive than the alternatives. I appreciated the rapid ascent and I was still able to take in the view across Ullswater towards the sun setting over Glenridding.

I enjoyed the path as it snaked up the fell and eventually brought me to the summit of Gowbarrow Fell which I had previously visited just once before all the way back in 2007, more than eighteen years ago. A steep craggy descent, that I could or should have gone around, took me off the summit and onto an easy path that circles Gowbarrow Fell and provided me with an interesting walk until I reached the remains of a shooting lodge where I turned left into a conifer plantation, Swinburn’s Park, on a good path that eventually brought me to the road that passes over the Hause. This was a great, little walk over three minor fells that vary considerably. Great Mell Fell deserved to be climbed if only for the view of Blencathra, while the ascent of Little Mell Fell is too short to be worthwhile. Gowbarrow Fell is a great little fell on its own and deserved more time spent exploring it than I had on this occasion or even in 2007.