Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Encyclopedia

Cnicht

Mountain in Snowdonia, UK

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.
Listed summits of Cnicht
NameGrid refHeightStatus
Cnicht North Top690 m (2,260 ft)Nuttall

Cnicht is a mountain in Snowdonia which forms part of the Moelwynion mountain range.

01Features

Its appearance when viewed from the south-west, i.e., from the direction of Porthmadog, has earned it the sobriquet the "Matterhorn of Wales", albeit being 3,787 metres lower. In reality, Cnicht is a long ridge and, at 691 m, is the fifth-highest peak in the Moelwynion mountain range. It can be easily ascended from Croesor, the village at its foot, or, with more difficulty, from Nant Gwynant to the northwest.

Although regarded by some as a mountain in its own right, Cnicht does not have the required 150m of topographic prominence to be classed as a Marilyn.

02Toponymy

The mountain's name is thought to derive from the English surname Knight, the name of a family who were formerly merchants in Caernarfon. When borrowed into Welsh, the consonants represented by K and gh were still pronounced in English, and these are retained in the Welsh name Cnicht as C (/k/) and ch (/χ/).

03In fiction

It appears as the "Saeth" in Patrick O'Brian's 1952 novel Three Bear Witness (published as Testimonies in the USA), which is set in a fictionalised version of Cwm Croesor. O'Brian and his wife lived in the valley between 1946 and 1949.

Watch videos about CnichtExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Cnicht, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.