Wainwrights Baggers

Book 4 · The Southern Fells

Illgill Head

A 609 m Wainwright in The Southern Fells, with one desk-checked ascent from Lake Head car park, Wasdale: 3.5 km and 540 m of climbing.

Explore Illgill Head in 3D

Is Illgill Head a Wainwright?

Yes. Illgill Head is one of the 214 Wainwrights: number 18 of 30 in Book 4, The Southern Fells, of Alfred Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells.

Climbing Illgill Head from Lake Head car park, Wasdale

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P1 km
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 Illgill Head from the National Trust's Lake Head car park near Wasdale Head, the start also used by the Lingmell, Scafell and Scafell Pike routes here. Parking is paid and the car park sits at about 70 m. No bus stop with a current service lies within 6 km.

The line is 3.5 km long and gains about 540 m. After a short footway and a gravel track, it crosses Lingmell Gill at about 130 m and joins the Old Corpse Road, a public bridleway, for about 1.3 km. The bridleway climbs gently from about 75 m to 220 m, crossing Groove Gill at about 1.05 km.

From about 1.45 km the route follows paths that are not graded for difficulty on the map. It crosses Straighthead Gill at about 1.6 km, and the steepest stretch follows: between 2 km and 3 km the ground rises from about 315 m to 585 m. Part of the path near 3 km is graded mountain hiking by OpenStreetMap.

The last 470 m are almost level, from about 585 m to the top at 609 m. The route leaves the mapped path for its final 25 m, and no cairn, trig pillar or shelter is mapped at the summit point.

About 1.7 km of the line follows public bridleways and footpaths, and 2.8 km crosses open access land. Illgill Head is 609 m high, 129th of the 214 Wainwrights by height, and belongs to the Southern Fells in Book 4.

The GPX file is the same line, from the car park to the summit. Return the same way, or plan a longer walk with a map before you set out.

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 Illgill Head stands

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

Nearest Wainwrights

Straight-line distances between summits.

All the fells in The Southern 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.