Cnicht

Cnicht
Cnicht from the south-west
Highest point
Elevation	691 [1]  m (2,267 ft)
Prominence	105 m (344 ft)
Listing	HuMP, Hewitt, Nuttall
Naming
English translation	knight
Language of name	Welsh
Pronunciation	Welsh pronunciation: [ˈknɪχt]
Geography
Location	Gwynedd, Wales
Parent range	Moelwynion
OS grid	SH645466
Topo map	OS Landranger 115

Listed summits of Cnicht

Name	Grid ref	Height	Status
Cnicht North Top		690 m (2,260 ft)	Nuttall

Cnicht is a mountain in Eryri which forms part of the Moelwynion mountain range. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

Features

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.

Toponymy

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^{[ when? ]} pronounced in English, and these are retained in the Welsh name Cnicht as ⟨C⟩ (/k/) and ⟨ch⟩ (/χ/). ^[5]

In 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. ^[6] O'Brian and his wife lived in the valley between 1946 and 1949.

References

1. "Cnicht". hill-bagging.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2025.
2. Marsh, Terry. The Summits of Snowdonia (London: Robert Hale, 1984)
3. Marsh, Terry. The Mountains of Wales (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985)
4. Nuttall, John & Anne (1999). The Mountains of England & Wales - Volume 1: Wales (2nd edition ed.). Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone. ISBN   1-85284-304-7.
5. Owen, Hywel Wyn and Richard Morgan, Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales (Llandysul: Gomer, 2007), p. 91.
6. Tolstoy, Nikolai (2005). Patrick O'Brian: The making of the novelist. London: Arrow. pp. 337–339. ISBN   0-09-941584-4.

External links

• Wales portal
• mountains portal

• www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Cnicht and surrounding area

53°0′1.26″N4°1′7.66″W / 53.0003500°N 4.0187944°W / 53.0003500; -4.0187944