5-meter high soft sandstone buttress with several straight up problems and a traverse which can be done in either direction. The rock is very soft and potential holds can come off in your hands - though the central holds of the defined problems are all fairly robust. Some harder problems were chipped into the quarry by climbing-starved children during the first Coronavirus lockdown.
Option 1 (shorter, slightly dodgey parking):
Park on the verge on Woodloes Lane shortly before the road splits into two private access roads (GPS Coordinates). From here follow the public footpath signs up the left of the two roads. Centenary Way crosses this road. Take a right onto the path and follow it until you see the crag which is very clearly visible to the right of the footpath (GPS Coordinates).
Option 2 (longer, proper parking):
Park in the layby on Rouncil Lane (GPS Coordinates). Follow the Centenary Way footpath southwards along the edge of the golf course to reach the quarry.
Developed by Michaël Bortoluzzi, Alan Segar & Steve Delaney in 2015.
Numbers correspond to route numbers on the topo below.
1. Left to Right Traverse (Project/f6C)
2. Finger Pockets or Dyno (f4)
3. Crack Basher (f4)
4a. Wall Right of Crack (Project/f6C)
4b. Projecting (Project/f?)
5. Disappearing Holds (Project/f6C)
6. Left Hand Pinch (f4)
7. Two Hand Undercut (f3)
8. Right Arete (f2)
9. Traverse Right to Left (Project/f6C)
10. Centenary Traverse (f4+)
Option 1 (shorter, slightly dodgey parking):
Park on the verge on Woodloes Lane shortly before the road splits into two private access roads (GPS Coordinates). From here follow the public footpath signs up the left of the two roads. Centenary Way crosses this road. Take a right onto the path and follow it until you see the crag which is very clearly visible to the right of the footpath (GPS Coordinates).
Option 2 (longer, proper parking):
Park in the layby on Rouncil Lane (GPS Coordinates). Follow the Centenary Way footpath southwards along the edge of the golf course to reach the quarry.
Developed by Michaël Bortoluzzi, Alan Segar & Steve Delaney in 2015.
Numbers correspond to route numbers on the topo below.
1. Left to Right Traverse (Project/f6C)
2. Finger Pockets or Dyno (f4)
3. Crack Basher (f4)
4a. Wall Right of Crack (Project/f6C)
4b. Projecting (Project/f?)
5. Disappearing Holds (Project/f6C)
6. Left Hand Pinch (f4)
7. Two Hand Undercut (f3)
8. Right Arete (f2)
9. Traverse Right to Left (Project/f6C)
10. Centenary Traverse (f4+)
North Woodloes Quarry Topo
For there must always be places and conditions where Shakespeare's lines in Cymbeline seem so apposite as to make one wonder what the man found to climb in Warwickshire, when he writes of
'the art o' the court,
As hard to leave as keep ; whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery
that the fear's as bad as falling.'
- On Climbing Alone, A. P. Rossiter (1948)
