The Welshpool man moving mountains

A Welshpool man has hit the national headlines over the past week, and we have caught up with him this weekend to find out about the man behind the controversy!

Myrddyn Phillips, 57, is a mountain surveyor and has been measuring mountains for nearly 20 years as a hobby, but his most recent work has downgraded one of the Brecon Beacons’ most famous mountains to a hill.

He measures the height of mountains using satellite-based technology (pictured) and found that Fan y Big’s measurements fell just 4.9ft (1.5m) short.

Mr Phillips (below, right) said: “To an extent it is a shame because it is a stunning hill on one of the best ridge walks in the whole of Wales.”

It has now been taken off the Hewitts list, which records mountains in England, Wales and Ireland over 2,000ft (609.6m) high.

Alan Dawson, the author of the Hewitts list, said the result of the survey was “expected”.

“It was confirmation of what we long suspected,” he said. “In this field of study almost two metres is a huge difference.”

Anyway, we wanted to find out more about the man himself, almost 23 years to the day since the release of The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain, which was filmed in Llanrhaeadr and starred Hugh Grant.

How long have you been re-classifying mountains?            

I’ve been surveying hills for over 20 years, it isn’t every one that then undergoes re-classification, but occasionally from the ones that do, one or two hit the headlines. 

What got you into this? 

Simply put; a love of the hills, with the surveying somehow evolving out of this. 

Did you enjoy the Hugh Grant film all those years ago?

I’ve watched the film two or three times and quite enjoyed it. I used to survey hills with two colleagues and a few years ago we were contacted by the producer of the film, who now lives in LA, thanking us for keeping his film in the headlines. 

What have been your other most notable re-classifications? 

With my ex-colleagues we were responsible for two re-classifications from the list of Munros; the Scottish 3,000ft mountains. There's also been a number of ‘new’ 2,000ft mountains both in Wales and in England and many other re-classifications, but based on lesser known listings.

As someone who is familiar with the hills/mountains, where are your favourite places locally/overall? 

Most places in Wales, the country is very special and for somewhere relatively small in area it has a great variety of upland landscape. However, locally the hills above Llanfyllin always draw me back, as do the Berwyns.

What's next for you? 

Along with a colleague we’re trying to move the border of Wales, this sounds a little far-fetched but it does have an ounce of truth in it!