Watson's Dodd

Watson’s Dodd
Watson’s Dodd from the west, with Castle Rock in front of the steep craggy end of the fell
Highest point
Elevation	789 m (2,589 ft)
Prominence	11 m (36 ft)
Parent peak	Great Dodd
Listing	Wainwright
Coordinates	54°34′02″N 3°01′43″W / 54.56725°N 3.02849°W / 54.56725; -3.02849Coordinates: 54°34′02″N 3°01′43″W / 54.56725°N 3.02849°W / 54.56725; -3.02849
Geography
Watson’s Dodd Location in Lake District, UK
Location	Cumbria, England
Parent range	Lake District, Eastern Fells
OS grid	NY336196
Topo map	OS Explorer OL5

Watson’s Dodd is a fell in the English Lake District, a minor rise on the main ridge of the Helvellyn range in the Eastern Fells, but a prominent shoulder on the west side of that range.

At its foot is the imposing crag of Castle Rock, on which rock climbers have developed some 60 named routes.

Seen from the west, Watson’s Dodd is a noticeable shoulder on the Helvellyn ridge, north of Sticks Pass. The summit stands on the main ridge of the Helvellyn range at the point where the south-west ridge of Great Dodd and the north-west ridge of Stybarrow Dodd meet and merge. From this point a shoulder drops into the valley of the How Beck at Legburthwaite. This shoulder, part of the High Fells of St John’s Common, is sharply defined by the deep valleys of Mill Gill to its north and Stanah Gill to its south. It slopes gently to around the 500 m contour, and then drops more steeply into the valley over a number of rocky crags. Just before reaching the valley, part of this shoulder rises again to the high, precipitous crag known as Castle Rock.

On the eastern side of the ridge the deep valley of Browndale Beck separates Great Dodd from Stybarrow Dodd, so that Watson’s Dodd has no eastern flanks at all other than its triangular summit plateau.

The highest point on Watson’s Dodd has an elevation of 789 m, a prominence of only 11 m above the slight depression separating it from Stybarrow Dodd.

Watson’s Dodd stands on the main watershed between the Derwent river system to the west, and Ullswater (and the Eden river system) to the east. Streams on the west are now captured by a water leat and diverted into Thirlmere reservoir.

Standing at the top of the Vale of St John’s, the nearly vertical Castle Rock juts out from the hillside with rock faces on three sides. The castle-like profile is made still more picturesque by a garland of mixed woodland around the lower slopes. This rock has attracted the admiring views of visitors since the start of tourism to the Lakes. Thomas West in 1778 referred to the valley ‘nobly terminated by the castle-like rock of St. John’. Jonathan Otley in 1823 knew the rock as ‘the massive rock of Green Crag, sometimes called the Castle Rock of St. John's’. The Scottish lawyer and novelist Sir Walter Scott, wrote his romantic narrative-poem The Bridal of Triermain in 1812. In this, Castle Rock appears as the setting for the Enchanted Castle from which the hero, Sir Roland de Vaux of Triermain, must rescue the maiden, Gyneth. Triermain was the name of a fiefdom in the barony of Gilsland in north-east Cumberland; a pele-tower near Birdoswald still bears the name.