Clough Head ( /klʌf hɛd/) (meaning: hill-top above the ravine) is a fell, or hill, in the English Lake District.

The fell stands south of the village of Threlkeld and the A66 road, and it forms the steep eastern side of the tranquil valley of St John's in the Vale.

Most of the fell is Open Access land, which walkers can enter from either end of the Old Coach Road, or from a lane south of the village of Threlkeld.

To the north of the summit the ground drops abruptly down a steep scree-covered and craggy slope which marks the northern end of the Helvellyn range.

[1] Steep rocky crags guard the whole western side of the fell, rising abruptly from the green valley of St John's in the Vale.

South of Wanthwaite Crags is the very steep Fisher's Wife's Rake, a grassy break in the cliffs (though with scree) which allows determined fell-walkers to ascend the fell on this side.

This gill contains a considerable flow of water in its rocky gorge, but it often has only a dry bed by the time it gets down to valley level.

From Threlkeld Knotts there is a striking view of Red Screes just above, and a narrow path slants up through the crags to the west shoulder of Clough Head.

[2] An old route, marked on maps as "Old Coach Road" crosses the northern slopes of Threlkeld Knotts and skirts the eastern side of Clough Head, reaching a height of 437 metres (1,434 ft)[6] as it crosses from Wanthwaite ( /ˈwɒn.θɛt/[2]) in St John's in the Vale to High Row near Dockray.

[1] However, official signs present on the gates at both ends of the road clearly show that access by motorised vehicles is permitted.

This lane begins opposite Threlkeld village, or it can be joined from the disused railway line alongside the road to the quarry.

A narrow footpath leads from the Old Coach Road (at a point 250 metres (820 ft) east of Hause Well) to White Pike and then on to the summit.

From the south, the ridge track from Great Dodd leads straight up the long gentle slope to the top.

[2] Finally, Fisher's Wife's Rake is a possible route up through the crags on the west side of Clough Head for energetic and determined walkers,[7] but it is "very steep.

"[2] Climbers, or scramblers with some rock-climbing experience and a rope for the more difficult pitches, can ascend the hidden recesses of Sandbed Gill.

[12] Mudstones, siltstones and sandstones which had been deposited in deep water on the northern margin of an ancient continent (Avalonia) in the early Ordovician Period were chaotically disrupted by a huge undersea avalanche to form an olistostrome deposit in which blocks of rock are now embedded in a matrix of mudstone, and intensely deformed by minor folds, slumps and shears.

[14] In the area to the north of Sticks Pass the Birker Fell andesites are overlain by the Lincomb Tarns Tuff Formation.

This rock is a rhyolitic lapilli tuff in which the individual pieces of semi-molten lava were flattened under the weight of deposits above them.

[16] Mineral veins have been formed in many Lake District rocks by hydrothermal circulation of groundwater though geological faults and are often associated with the granite batholith.

[17] The lower promontory of Threlkeld Knotts north of Clough Head is scarred and flanked by 'rock slope failure' fractures and landslips, and views from the A66 and Blencathra could suggest that the whole mass of the Knotts has descended from the concavity in the north face, which is not a true glacial cirque (Lakeland combe), but this remains debatable.

[18] Rock slope failure also patterns White Pike with antiscarps (uphill-facing scarplets), which could formerly have extended across the Clough Head cavity.

Knott is a dialect word from the Old Norse knǫttr, 'ball, hard round mass' used of compact or craggy hills.