UKC

I once got drunk with an  American climber in the Wasdale Inn . He didn't seem too clued up about Lake District topography but I gathered he was fairly competent on the rock so I agreed to show him up  Scafell Pike by the ordinary route the following day. Luckily my ruse was helped the next morning by a heavy mist in the valley and we slogged up to Pike's Crag, We climbed the classic V Diff there and it was brilliant,  the mist clearing as we climbed, but even better was his reaction on looking up the slope from the final belay  and seeing a bunch of more pedestrian types  enjoying the summit trig . He was a good sort and  appreciated the joke. 

Only a couple of years later I climbed C ordinary on Dow and thought that  finished fairly close to the summit, And when I was a kid I thought climbing that 2 pitch V Diff on Alderman was pretty much like real mountaineering.

So, which English rock climbs land you nearest to a mountain/ hill summit?

(I am excluding Welsh and Scottish  ones because there's probably a wealth of answers)

Great Western Almscliff.

Red Pencil on Pen Y Gent. Now you may laugh, but Pen Y gent was my first Mountain.

Completely forgot about that!

Anything on Pillar?

Engineers slabs cant be more than a 5 minute wander to the summit of Great Gable?

If you count Pillar Rock as a summit then it has loads. There's a V Diff that finishes bang on the summit of Steeple, and Pilgrim's Progress tops out within yards of the summit of Lingmell. Dow, as you say, but there's a fair bit of broken scrambling between the top of the guidebook pitches and the summit. If Pavey Ark counts as a summit (it's in Wainwright) then a few there, and there are easy routes finishing on the main two Langdale Pikes. 

Outside the Lakes, Red Pencil may be high but it finishes around a mile from the top of Pen-y-Ghent so not a real contender. If Almscliffe counts then there's also the Hay Tor routes on Dartmoor, which tourists definitely feel is a summit, and a few other Dartmoor tors would also count (Vixen, Great Links). Lots of Stanage routes finish by one of the two trigpoints, and then there's Hen Cloud. Was going to mention Carlin Tooth but just realised it's a few hundred yards into Scotland.

I'd go with either the Pillar Rock routes or Steeple Buttress, myself.

Yes pillar or lingmell or great gable, surprised you say red pencil is a mile from the summit of pen y gent.

I always enjoy the Red Tarn gullies in winter - pulling over the top to the (usual) surprise of a group gathered in the Hellvelyn shelter circle. 

Likewise the Trinity face of Snowdon. I agree its very satisfying ending up on the summit. 

Pretty much anything on Lliwedd, including classics like Red Wall/ Longlands Continuation, put you right on the Snowdon Horseshoe when you pull onto the top.

If you finish a route on Pillar ( Rock) you can't amble up to the summit of Pillar  in a few strides. 

I'm surprised at the Red Pencil criticism but in real terms (accessibility) it might be closer to the summit than the Pillar/ Pillar Rock combination.

Yes, I acknowledged that in the OP and the thread title.

Bow Fell must have a few ?

There are quite a few trad routes up the various flanks of Crib goch. Also the routes on Gylder Fach (or is it Fawr) main cliff. And many routes on the East Face of Tryfan. Most of the routes on Carnedd y Filliast also, and the routes in Craig Cwm Silyn. Snowdonia does seem good for this.

In the lakes, Bowfell Buttress puts you on a sub-summit of Bowfell. You also have the big Diff going up the south-east face of Pike O' Stickle.

In the Peak you have any of the routes on Kinder North; they might be  long way horizontally from the top but vertically they are pretty much there.

Just looked on the map, actually about 500 metres so a mile is an exaggeration, but still a fair way compared to Pillar Rock or Steeple.

Kidsty Pike summit slab.V.Diff.

Yes, I acknowledged this.......

I could walk that 500 m quicker than I could downclimb the  Pillar routes to the gap then scramble up again and walk on to the summit. (I say this purely from distant memory.       )

Pillar Rock is in several ticklists as a summit in its own right, in which case it surely wins easily. If you count the summit as being Pillar itself then obviously the Rock's routes aren't contenders, so I'd go with Steeple Buttress, which finishes right by the cairn on Steeple.

Edit: Tom's Kidsty Pike slab is pretty close too.

My mistake, I only skim-read what you wrote! I did wonder why nobody had mentioned Tryfan. South-West face of Pike O Stickle is a good one for the Lakes though, you finish bang on the summit. I think this crag is overlooked but the rock is nice and it is one of the first, or maybe the first, high mountain crag to come into condition in the spring. You can climb it pretty much anywhere at grade 2/3 to Diff and it's quite a big face if you include the scrambling below it.

Edit: Changed it to south-west face not south-east!

Anything on Napes crag, Great Gable. But the ultra classic has to be Needle Ridge, taking in the Needle en route. OK it lands you on Westmorland Terrace (one of the greatest mt viewpoints in England), but then you can charge up the final v short tier to the top by v. hard scrambling that brings you right to the summit (set back a bit, but just a few yards)

Alderman's Crag is a good choice. As you say, it feels so much like a bit of mteering away from the mts. A lovely satisfying thing if you take those tiers by the most direct line.

I wasn't aware of the Steeple Route. Sounds like a challenge at the grade.

There might be something on Esk Pike that fits, in particular the cliff above the lake, not sure if it's all scrambles though.

It's a great pity that Alphin hasn't got at least a little summit tor to provide a bit of balance.

What a pity Pillar Mountain is where it is, because if it weren't there, Pillar Rock would be by far the best mountain in England.

It gets a couple of stars in the current guide and you certainly couldn't finish any closer to the summit cairn.

Bowfell Buttress is another very obvious one (but it's a pretty scruffy route, scarcely worth the long approach, apart from the great view and position).

Great Carrs Summit Crag.

Thomson's Chimney (HS 4b) deposits you right on the summit of Tryfan (as I remember it) Lots of fannying around by me using a hex as a foot stirrup then it started to snow as I rounded the corner. I think we did it as a continuation of Pinnacle Rib Route.

Edit: It's in Wales

Yeah, Pinnacle Rib with Thomson's chimney finish is such an obvious one ... but it's in Wales.

The top of Grey Crag in Buttermere is only a short wander from the top of High Stile. I think Pillar Rock feels the most satisfying top though. Not the top of a mountain but you sure know you are on top of something!

We'll just have to be content with it being by far the best top instead. The Irish site Mountainviews includes Napes Needle in its list of English summits though, so if it counts........

Lots of routes on Scafell Crag, and Scafell East Buttress finish within spitting distance of the summits (Scafell and Symond’s Knott). Also, don’t forget Great End and Hen Crag (Wetherlam) in winter...you basically top out at the summits!

I think the big quarry below Crich Stand is still being worked (or is part of the tramway museum), but if it's not and if there are any routes there then they could end pretty much right next to the trig. There's a school of thought that whatever the Crich Stand hill is called is the last hill in the Pennines - it's a definite summit, anyway. (I was brought up in those parts but Iain's probably better placed to know.)

There's also the Old Man of Mow, which is one of the more difficult summits in the list of Humps:

http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/mountaindetails.php?qu=S&rf=18980

It's not officially allowed but I know people who have been up it in list-completing terms.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/mow_cop-1608/spiral_route-106350

Probably something at Brimham? I think there's a boulder on the top plateau that's higher than the trip point. 

Ah, yes. Sorry.  Would Lower Sharpnose count?  Mam Tor (not sure that strictly counts as rock)?   

OK, here's an esoteric one. The routes in Bardon Quarry end pretty much on an English county summit (Leicestershire). 

http://www.leicesterclimbs.f9.co.uk/BardonhillR.htm

They're documented in Leicestershire guidebooks, both print and online, since time immemorial. But access is strictly forbidden and despite growing up in Leicester and climbing a fair bit in Leicestershire in my youth, I've never heard of anybody actually doing  them.

I suppose really this the point of Rock Climbing in England, that it is climbing purely for the sake of climbing and that it is not to reach a summit.

I have climbed Pilgrims Progress and the V Diff on Pikes crag, and thinking about it, linking the two would make a grand day out.

Top of the routes at LSN are only about half way up the cliff. 

I think there's a crumbling horror on Roseberry Topping that finishes right by the summit, this might be in the same category as Mam Tor ie not really rock.

And in a similar vein there is Cronton Oil at Rivilin

C Ordinary only lands you on Easy Terrace; you're not even half-way to the summit. Giant's Crawl takes you to the top of B Buttress; Eliminate A (and a clutch of other routes) to the top of A Buttress - and from there to the summit.

Scafell, Pillar, Napes Needle all land you on prominences you couldn't access without climbing. A tediously long list of climbs in the Lakes land you near the summit of a hill - e.g. anything on Pavey, Harrison Stickle, Gimmer, Pike O'Stickle, Bowfell... Raven Crag, Gillercombe Buttress... High Crag, Eagle Crag, Grey Crags... Steeple... etc. etc. etc.

Skeleton Ridge (HVS 4c) ? 

Spiral Route (VS 4a)

The routes on the south-west fae of Pike O' Stickle finish bang on the summit. 

I've been up there and had a hell of an adventurous evening, furtively jumping the fence and abseiling down before getting on (I think) Zig Zag. Proper BIG LOOSE stuff on the routes there and feels like a 'summit'.

The quarry has cut right up below the routes and the summit, so the exposure looking over the massive quarry pit is amplified substantially. Overall well worth a visit if you're stuck in Leicestershire as I was for a period of time.

This flyover gives a flavour of the situation...

youtube.com/watch?v=fHDdhAE-Uf4&

Wow. It's a lot bigger than it was when I used to walk up there with my grandpa.

That's proper adventure climbing. I jumped on Virago (E1 5a) at Craig Buddon when it was given VS in the yellow guide. How Ken Vickers laughed when I protested about the grade.

loads of climbs on Simonside between Great chimney and Quartz buttress will land you no more than 20 steps from the summit cairn.

And I just remembered Helm crag. The only 'wainwright' summit the man himself never reached.

I've done Black Cleft at Bardon Hill but we're talking about sometime between 1982 & 1984.

I believe several routes were done on a level below the guidebook routes in the 90s but I've no idea if they still exist. Since the top of the hill is the highest point in Leics, they're not allowed to quarry it away so the guidebook routes will probably be undisturbed.

Just looked at that video, the hole is a lot lot bigger than in the 80s, probably twice as wide and twice as deep. I think the 90s routes have disappeared.

I think my first ever multi-pitch climb, Troutdale Pinnacle finishes on the summit, or close to it.

Several trig points atop climbs along Derwent Edge, - Back Tor for one.

Haven’t seen a mention of,

Central Climb on Hen Cloud.

High Neb Buttress at Stanage.

...although you’re stretching the notion of hill/mountain a bit...

You can't get to the summit of Kilmar Tor on Bodmin Moor without using your hands.  Feels like a proper mountain too.

 > I think my first ever multi-pitch climb, Troutdale Pinnacle finishes on the summit, or close to it.

Do you mean it finishes at the top of the crag? Not quite the same.