Wainwrights Baggers

Book 6 · The North Western Fells

Barrow

A 455 m Wainwright in The North Western Fells, with one desk-checked ascent from Braithwaite: 2.3 km and 370 m of climbing.

Explore Barrow in 3D

Is Barrow a Wainwright?

Yes. Barrow is one of the 214 Wainwrights: number 3 of 29 in Book 6, The North Western Fells, of Alfred Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells.

Climbing Barrow from Braithwaite

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BP500 m
The route in green, from the car park (P) to the summit (triangle), with the bus stop (B) where it falls on the map and nearby Wainwrights as dots. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

This route climbs Barrow from a free car park in Braithwaite village. The car park has room for about 10 cars and sits at about 85 m. The Croft Terrace bus stop, about 90 m away, is served by the 77A, X5 and X5S.

The line is 2.3 km long and gains about 370 m. The first 380 m are on village roads, apart from a short length of bridleway, and they include Croft Terrace. The route crosses Coledale Beck at about 280 m and Barrow Gill at about 370 m. Up to 0.4 km the height hardly changes, at about 90 m.

A track and a bridleway then take the line to about 0.86 km, where a path graded hiking by OpenStreetMap begins. It climbs for about 1.25 km. Between 0.4 km and 1.2 km the line rises from about 90 m to 240 m, and from there it keeps a steady gradient, reaching about 395 m at 2 km. The last 200 m are on paths not graded for difficulty on the map, to the top at 455 m. The final few metres leave the mapped path.

About 0.6 km of the line follows public footpaths and bridleways, 1.5 km crosses open access land, and about 280 m is on public road.

Barrow is 455 m high, 187th of the 214 Wainwrights by height, and belongs to the North Western Fells in Book 6.

The GPX file runs from the car park to the summit. Walk back the same way, or plan a longer round with a map before you go.

Download the GPXFree. The route is © OpenStreetMap contributors and the file is released under the Open Database Licence: you may copy, share and adapt it.

Where Barrow stands

1 · Eastern2 · Far Eastern3 · Central4 · Southern5 · Northern6 · North Western7 · WesternBarrow
Barrow among all 214 Wainwright summits, each in its true position.

Nearest Wainwrights

Straight-line distances between summits.

All the fells in The North Western FellsAll 214 Wainwrights

Map and route data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.

Heights along the route from OS Terrain 50. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (NaPTAN, Bus Open Data Service, Lake District National Park Authority rights of way).

Access land © Natural England copyright. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

Heights, grid references and summit positions come from The Database of British and Irish Hills v18.3, used under CC BY 4.0.