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Bouldering amongst the buildings.
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It's big. And it's down the road.
A few months ago, I was chatting to a guy called John down at Mile End Climbing Wall (London, UK) when he mentioned that he was planning on bringing two massive boulders all the way from Cornwall, and putting them in two parks in east London as part of an art project. Part of me assumed that this was probably some grand, over-ambitious idea and would never happen - but what an idea.
There's a fantastic community of climbers in London who have very limited access to real rock. About 1½ hour's drive away is the Southern Sandstone which has some bouldering and an array of routes that require a top-rope as the stone is too soft to place gear, never mind drill bolts.
And sure enough, a few weeks ago they each arrived and have been implanted. One is in Shoreditch Park, not far from Old Street; the other is in Mabley Green, just next to the Blackwall Tunnel on the north side of the Thames. Two boulders can only offer a limited number of problems, but given that I can now get on a bus for ten minutes in order to climb real rock, it's a fantastic addition to the city.
I dread to think how much it must have cost to move them, but well done to John and Hackney Borough Council for making it happen. Chance of a few more..?
Some links:
Article on FadWebsite.com
Blog of Leabank Square, London
Shoreditch Bouldering - A new blog dedicated to the boulder in Shoreditch Park
Comments
Sweet!
Whoa, I went to buildering.net and initially thought "What the hell? That's not my stuff...someone hacked me!" Thanks Kiell for the very first user submitted story!
I dig the last link, with all the route descriptions. Seems to me the Mabley Green boulder needs to be freed from internment camp.
One little tech tip: If you'd like to get rid of the "read more..." within the full story, uncheck "Show summary in full view", and duplicate your intro in the full story, minus the "read more..." line.
Heh. Thought it might freak
Heh. Thought it might freak you out.
Still can't figure out from the code how you got the image on the left instead of the right, but never mind.
I've not had a play on the boulders properly yet. I've messed about for an hour or so on the one in Shoreditch park in my trainers with Thomas des Bois but I think we got a little bit lucky with access. The addition of the boulder is part of a larger redevelopment plan that's underway, and I'm not sure how soon the fencing will be removed. We rocked up just as the contractors went home for the day, so we jumped the various fences and had a clamber. Slab problems in trainers - great fun.
There's talk of there being a competition and this may be another reason for keeping people off the boulder, though that seems a little excessive.
My two friends (who climb V9 and V11) have visited the boulder in Mabley Green and tell me that it's well worth a visit. I haven't ventured down yet as it's a bit further away. Maybe at the weekend. This one is fully accessible to the public.
Certainly on the Shoreditch Park and quite possibly on the Mabley Green boulder, there are a few flakes that are going to give way once someone cranks on them really hard. There's not much on these boulders as it is, so the disappearance of some hand holds is potentially going to make some of the slightly more feasible problems a helluva lot harder.
There's talk of chipping, but nothing official. I guess we wait and see!
Hah. Chipping! Awesome. I'd
Hah. Chipping! Awesome. I'd love to see the ethical debate regarding chipped holds on a large, transplanted, quarried, albeit somewhat natural piece of public art.
As for image L and R, the difference is a single letter on the very first line. I made two classes, one is "image" - which displays images on the left, one is "imageR" which displays images on the right. You had the latter originally.
Bumped into the artist, John
Bumped into the artist, John Frankland, at the wall again today. Really nice bloke. I congratulated him on getting everything in place after what must have been some incredible logistics. He seemed to positively encourage jumping the fence to have a climb. I don't think he has any plans to have the boulders chipped. I think even though they're quarried, he doesn't want to go down that road. I've said I'll email him with the various websites on which I've been posting information so maybe he'll say hello.
east end boulders
thanx for the comments y`all...
The project is almost complete - the competitions will mark the end for me in terms of organising and fulfilling my brief, but I hope the boulders will be put to good use well into the future... it`s looking good at the moment!
The comps are now planned for saturday 13th at Mabley Green and sunday 14th at Shoreditch Park, both to start at 12.00. Check out the websites for more info:
Peer.org.uk
mileendwall.org.uk
the fences - they`re there because each location is still technically a `live site` and the work there isn`t finished. At Mabley Green it`s all over bar the shouting, and the fence is there to protect the new turf for another week. After the comp, it`ll be gone for good.
Shoreditch isn`t quite so straightforward; the whole park is being `re-generated` and there`s still a fair amount of work to be done there which means that it will remain a live site for quite a few weeks - I`m not sure how long. The landscaping and turfing will be finished by the end of tuesday (9th) and the fences kept in place... on sunday we`ll be granted official access for the comp, but the clients and contractors want to allow the turf time to bed in, and so officially people ain`t allowed access to climb, if you know what I mean... All I`d say is try to minimise your impact - use a mat and be patient - the boulder will be there for a long long time and it`s been a tricky process getting the council to allow the boulders to be there without soft landing surfaces, signs, fences etc...
repairs. chipping - my feelings are, don`t chip! I know that these boulders bear the scars of their manufacture and transportation but I think of them as `readymades`, untouched by myself, and that any damage sustained before they became climbing boulders is part of their making. Next week they are both going to be `cleaned` in preparation for the comps... cleaning, augmenting, embellishing, improving, chipping - it`s a movable feast isn`t it? Ultimately I have no controll over this and so am happy to accept whatever happens, but just to confuse things a bit, sometime soon three of the large boreholes near the bottom of the shoreditch boulder are going to be filled, hopefully in a seamless fashion, to stop really small kids from climbing up and getting stuck! Also, on the mabley green boulder there is a line of holes at the top of the steep east facing side - these will also be invisibly filled to make the line `more pure`. I`m aware of the contradictions here and feel free to comment!
Whatever you think, they`re bloody brilliant to climb on so go and bag yourself a first ascent while they`re stil `new` boulders - enjoy...
Nice one John, some really
Nice one John, some really useful info there. I'll be writing a report for the Parkour Generations blog at some point, though I don't think it will be for another few weeks. Unfortunately I'm away climbing in North Wales this weekend so won't be around for the competition - gutted! Good luck with the weather.
With regards to chipping, I think that could be argued endlessly and to be perfectly honest, I'm not too fussed either way. I'll probably miss the blast holes as I had fun doing a few slab problems in my trainers the other day whereby we simply eliminated a few of the holes. That said, i can totally understand your reasons for filling them - while we were there that afternoon an 8 year old girl turned up and climbed it a few times.
Good luck with it all. And again, nice work.
Info on the Peer website can
Info on the Peer website can be found here:
http://www.peeruk.org/projects/franklandboulder/competition.html
Very interesting topic.
Very interesting topic. Buildering may also take a form nearer to bouldering, where climbers often ascend and/or traverse smaller parts of buildings and structures.
Didn't have the heart to nuke
Didn't have the heart to nuke stating-the-obvious-spammer. Someone took a lot of time to compose a 90% coherent, on-topic post. But I will delete your links. I wouldn't want you writing any essay's for me anyway.