I was at Lawrencefield yesterday and noticed someone has took a big chuck of rock out at the first ledge. obviously to make a gear placement, the problem is they failed. Castration is prob not required for the culprit coz not got balls anyway.
This route was my first trad lead and an absolutely beauty of a route, I will be gutted and very annoyed to see that someone has yet again vandalised more rock!
We climbed the route a couple of days after the damage occurred (we think) - there was still a fair bit of fractured grit on the ledge. It looked to us as if the small block had been accidentally pulled out, so just wear and tear rather than deliberate vandalism. As has been stated there is gear available once you're standing on the ledge so there would have been little point in manufacturing a (poor) cam placement on that part of the route. There was no sign that the scar had been used as a gear placement as it was still in a very raw state.
having now seen pics of what is was like i can see the it is the small block that has gone. so some could have placed a piece of gear which may have snapped it off.