Choosing the Right 214 Wainwrights Map: Poster or Checklist?
When looking for Wainwright gifts for a fell-walker, the standard options often fall short of the reality on the hill. Boots are a matter of personal fit, waterproofs are highly technical, and most walkers are fiercely loyal to their preferred brand of rucksack. But a proper record of the fells they have climbed—or the ones they are yet to tackle—is a different matter entirely.
Finding thoughtful Lake District gifts for someone who spends their weekends out on the crags requires something that speaks their language. That is the thinking behind our Wainwright Maps collection. We offer one core 214 Wainwrights map, but we produce it as two entirely different sheets, designed for two different stages of a walker's journey.
One Map, Two Very Different Walkers
At the heart of both sheets is a detailed relief map of the Lake District, showing the deep glacial troughs and high ground of the national park. Every single one of the 214 Wainwright fells is marked by a numbered pin.
The numbering follows the elevation of the summits, starting with the highest first: pin number 1 sits squarely on Scafell Pike, while number 214 marks the modest but beloved Castle Crag in Borrowdale. To make planning and reading easier, the pin colours group the fells by the seven areas defined in Wainwright's Pictorial Guides: Eastern, Far Eastern, Central, Southern, Northern, North Western, and Western.
The geography is identical on both prints. The choice comes down to what happens beneath the map, and whether the recipient is at the start of their bagging round, or has already stood on every single summit.
The Framed Map Poster: For the Finisher
If you are buying for someone who has completed their round, or simply someone who wants the whole of Lakeland mapped out cleanly on their wall, The 214 Wainwrights — Terrain Map Poster is the right choice.
This sheet is finished. Beneath the map sits a comprehensive key, naming all 214 fells alongside their heights in feet, exactly as Wainwright recorded them in his guides. It is a reference piece, measuring 50 x 70 cm, designed for a walker to stand in front of with a cup of tea, retracing a long summer route over Helvellyn or a bitter winter descent into Great Langdale.
Because it is a finished piece to be looked at rather than interacted with, it is available as a framed print for £129.99. You can choose a black, white, or natural solid wood frame, and it arrives glazed and ready to hang straight on the wall.
The Map Checklist: For the Walker With Miles Left to Go
For the walker who is part-way through their round, keeping track of their progress on a phone screen or a scrap of paper in a guidebook, we offer The 214 Wainwrights Map and Checklist. This sheet is deliberately unfinished.
It features the exact same terrain map, but flanked by a functional, written checklist of all 214 fells. Crucially, each fell's row is designed for a pen. There is a 6 mm box to tick, and a 22 mm ruled line to write the date you climbed it. Because each fell's number in the list matches its pin on the map, a newly ticked row can immediately be located on the high ground above.
This version starts largely blank and fills up slowly over years of weekend trips and summer holidays. It is a working document of a person's time on the Cumbrian fells.
Framed, Glazed or Rolled?
There is a practical distinction between how these two sheets are sold. The Map Poster is available framed and glazed, or as a print alone, rolled in a tube for £44.99.
The Map Checklist, however, is sold unframed only. It costs £44.99 and is posted rolled in a tube, measuring the same 50 x 70 cm. This is a practical necessity rather than an oversight: you cannot tick a box through glazing. It needs to be pinned to a corkboard, hung with magnetic poster rails, or framed without glass so the walker can actually reach the paper when they return from the dales.
Giving a Map That Outlasts the Boots
A map makes excellent sense as a gift. It requires no sizing up, it survives being wrapped (whether in a sturdy cardboard tube or a large frame box), and it is one of the very few things a fell-walker will still be using a decade from now, long after their current boots have lost their tread.
If the walker in your life already has their map sorted, or if their walls are calling out for colour rather than cartography, you might want to look towards our Fells & Mountains collection, where the same high ground arrives as light and weather rather than as a list.
But for a clear, lasting record of time spent in the Cumbrian heights, the only question is whether they need a map to read, or a map to write on. If neither quite fits, the same 214 fells come as tiles on a square sheet in our chart posters, and there is more of the range in our guide to Lake District gifts.