UKC

Rare UK Guidebooks - Your Help Needed

Do you frequent second-hand bookshops and are you in possession of some rare pamphlet rock climbing guidebook which you jealously guard and show only to your closest friends? If so then read on.

In 1971 George Bridge produced a Bibliography of Rock Climbing Guidebooks in the British Isles and this was later updated by Jill Neate in 1986 within a Bibliography of Mountaineering Literature. Sadly though there were many gaps and errors owing to information about rare pamphlet guidebooks being hard to track down.  Some guidebooks were produced only for members of a club. Since then several dedicated guidebook collectors have diligently searched bookshops and websites in pursuit of rare items in order to enhance their collections.

More recently an extensive project has been in operation to compile a definitive 'Bibliography of British and Irish Guidebooks' which the BMC is soon to publish after the project has been completed. On each page the format will show pictures of the front covers of nine guidebooks which will be accompanied by full details of each one. The book is arranged to show the main areas such as: Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Peak District etc.

View the sample chapter - South Wales

With the help of the major clubs so far over 1,000 guidebooks have been identified and even at this late stage new entries are still coming in. In Ireland alone with the enthusiastic help of local climbers the number of known guidebooks has nearly doubled to over 100. As this project is unlikely to be updated in the foreseeable future it is hoped that this publication will be as close to being definitive as humanly possible. If you are in possession of any rare guidebook particularly in pamphlet form please if possible send full details (front cover scan, dimensions, number of pages, photos diagrams etc) to Alan Moss at climbingguidebook@yahoo.co.uk

The BMC has also compiled a list of 'missing' guidebooks which we are desperately trying to locate to obtain details.

Many thanks for your interest in the hope that you may turn up a long forgotten guidebook which has so far eluded us.


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13 Feb, 2012
Is there a list of what they have already? I'm not about to do this lot: "front cover scan, dimensions, number of pages, photos diagrams etc" for half a dozen old guides on the off chance that I'm the only one to have bothered.
13 Feb, 2012
Why not contact Alan Moss and ask him? Do you really think you'll be the only one to bother? So many people have already helped out and given a great deal of time towards this project. It's well worth taking the time to ask before consigning it to your bin. Phil
13 Feb, 2012
Just being devils advocate really. All you need is text file with the title + date and it'd be really easy for people to check. Also, as a mater of interest, where do you stop? That's a real question BTW, not a sarcy comment. I assume my hand typed 1965 guide to Heddon Quarry, held together with Bambi staples, gestetnered half a dozen times, doesn't count. I'll send you details of a couple of Northumbrian ones, although the current editor will likely have sent the same.
14 Feb, 2012
Although possibly it would a thing of value to try and collect digital copies of them in the future too - although a different project of course. I guess the UK is luck that many interim guides and the like have been published in some paper form - here in the Nordic area, there is a lot of knitted fog to content with!
14 Feb, 2012
I anticipate that there'll be good quality 'definitive' guides to some crags in Northumberland that are never published in printed form. See Simon Lichfields guide to Bizzle Crag at http://www.geoquest-verlag.de/sites/default/files/Bizzle%20Guide%20FINAL_0.pdf This guide compares favourably with any guide I can think of, except in length. It seems a shame that a project which catalogues UK guidebooks has to ignore the work of authors such as these.
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