Extremities of the UK

[Hope]

I was asked by the child of some friends the other day what were the most northerly/easterly/southerly/westerly points of the United Kingdom.  The child had been watching a TV programme about a journey from John 0'Groats to Land's End and noticed that these were, respectively, the most northerly and most westerly points on the mainland.

He suggested that somewhere on the Channel Islands must be the most southerly in the UK somewhere in the Orkneys the most northerly, somewhere in N. Ireland the most westerly - and that perhaps the tip of the Kent peninsula (as he described it) the most easterly.

I wonder were you would place these 4 extremities - initially without looking at the internet!!



Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extreme_points_of_the_United_Kingdom gives the complete list.

[Harrowby Hall]

In the first place, the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom.

However, the most southerly habitable dwelling in the British Isles is on the Ile Maitresse on a group of rocky islands called Les Minquiers "The Minkies" between Jersey and St Malo. The southernmost restaurant is Green Island Restaurant in the parish of St Clement (the southermost municipality) in Jersey.

I will now have a look at the Wiki article to be proved wrong ....

Thinking about it, might not Gibraltar be the southernmost point?

Or some place in Antarctica?

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Yes, I have now looked at the Wiki entry and it quite correctly makes a distinction between the United Kingdom and the British Isles.

[Gordon]

The Orkney Islands is wrong too, since further north there is Shetland, which I visited several times during my working life.

In those far off days it took a while even when flying from Glasgow since the flight involved landing at both Inverness and Kirkwall airports en route: presumably on both ocassions they had to rewind the elastic band - same on the return leg.

I once did the return on a single day to attend a lunchtime meeting in Lerwick. Each leg was about 50 minutes flying time, and even then you didn't get off the plane while they did whatever they did to it - the saving grace being that on both return legs they dispensed G&Ts

[ekim]

I've always thought of the Lizard as being the most southerly, the Scilly Isles as the most westerly and the Watford Gap as the most northerly.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

There are people who have walked from Dover to Cape Wrath (or the other way around), it's not so well known as the Lands End to John O'Groats route, as the crow flies I think it is about 600 miles but to actually walk it is, I think rather longer.

[Harrowby Hall]

Could it be that the most southerly place in the UK is RAF Akrotiri? The two Cyprus bases are United Kingdom sovereign territories.

[Hope]

Could it be that the most southerly place in the UK is RAF Akrotiri? The two Cyprus bases are United Kingdom sovereign territories.

But not part of the UK, as I understand it.  British embassies are 'UK sovereign territory' aren't they, so perhaps whichever country and capital with a British Embassy is most southern (or northern or ..., or ...) could be deemed the extreme.  Is Paris or Amsterdam perhaps the furthest West, or Dublin the furthest East?

[SteveH]

If you mean Great Britain, i.e. the English, Scottish and Welsh mainland, not counting the offshore Islands, the most northerly point id Dunnet Head (not John O'Groats), the most easterly is Ness Point in Lowestoft, the most sountherly is the tip of the Lizard peninsula, and the most westerly is Corrachadh Mòr in Scotland (not Land's End).

[Hope]

If you mean Great Britain, i.e. the English, Scottish and Welsh mainland, not counting the offshore Islands, the most northerly point id Dunnet Head (not John O'Groats), the most easterly is Ness Point in Lowestoft, the most sountherly is the tip of the Lizard peninsula, and the most westerly is Corrachadh Mòr in Scotland (not Land's End).

No, the question was 'the UK'.