I might have to move to the big smoke soon, but work from home.
If it happened, I'm thinking of mitigating the general misery by living near to a climbing gym. This means I could visit for an hour or two most weekdays.
Which gym has the best bouldering and other facilities for training solo? Bonus points if they run yoga classes etc. for members.
The stronghold
Pre-lockdown I visited London for work every 6 weeks or so. During these trips I always favoured Stronghold for the quality of setting and it not feeling too crowded.
They've got a training area, decent woody and a massive circuit board.
Coffee is good too.
Not much to fault really (unless you want lead/auto-belay...)
There are multiple good walls in London, so I would just use it as one of the factors in deciding where to live. Budget perhaps being the main one!
In someways easier to respond in the negative (i.e. not good for solo) as these days most are pretty good.
I would exclude
- Westway (bouldering is poor compared to other walls)
- Arch Acton (looks good on paper - in reality is horribly designed)
If location didn't matter I'd live near stronghold and yonder - those two would provide everything you could need. Harrow is also great but would involve living in Harrow.
Personal preferences here and disclaimer I'm a feeble boulder;
I'm a fan of the Hanger in Parsons Green (ain't cheap livin' round there mind) - interesting problems though it is pretty small (but quiet during the day) with a tiny training area.
Can't get on with Vauxwall West (too busy, always seems to make my fingers hurt) but Vauxwall East isn't bad.
Arch Building 1 is also good - has a big enough warm up / training area and a lot of different problems set.
Not really London as such but the White Spider in Tolworth has decent bouldering and a half a dozen auto-belays - but is a PITA to get to without a car and the youth team are a constant reminder of the pathetic level of mediocrity one has achieved...
White Spider's pretty easy to get to without a car. 15 minutes walk from Tolworth station.
The Reach at Woolwich has good bouldering but also has quite few auto belays. A good cafe and they run yoga classes I believe.
My thoughts on this are
Stronghold - Best for bouldering and training
The Castle - Best for routes (inc. Autobelay) / community / Yoga etc
Both of these aren't far from each other so if you live in the Manor House / Finsbury Park / Stokey Harringay kind of areas you can get to both super easily.
The Reach is also really good for routes (loads of Autobelays), but maybe slightly less so for bouldering and is in an area that's pretty bad for transport links unless you have a car.
The stronghold
> Not really London as such but the White Spider in Tolworth has decent bouldering and a half a dozen auto-belays
Err. 10 auto-belays actually...
I go to White Spider based on where I live, and it's a perfectly acceptable gym. They have changed their opening hours so they open 8 AM on weekdays. Convenient if you're a morning person and want to avoid getting humiliated by some kid who is younger than your climbing shoes.
> The Reach is also really good for routes (loads of Autobelays), but maybe slightly less so for bouldering and is in an area that's pretty bad for transport links unless you have a car.
The Reach is 10 mins walk from Woolwich Dockyard station, so no biggy. Worth considering, just for the sake of variety. 5 bouldering areas (inc. Cave and Comp Wall), traverse wall, plenty of lead, autobelays and TR, the training room is ok but coffee is always pretty good. A big place with nice staff and a slightly more mature membership.
I'd agree with Stronghold. It's one of the few places that always impresses me. Setting has a feel of climbing outdoors and the walls are very well shaped to aid this.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mile End. The original and the setting is perhaps up with the best in the country (based on hearsay and my humble experience).
The Arch is ok, but can get crowded and the setting seems to be hit and miss, with a focus on strength over technique with more comp style problems than a wall needs. That said, one of their best setters left before lockdown.
The Castle always seem to disappoint. It's as though their crushing setters have no idea what below f6C/+ means and and as such I never find any technical challenge below those grades. I can't speak of the roped activity but I've found it very cliquey compared to other walls.
I'm unsure which is the original Vauxwall (east perhaps?), but it is the worst wall I've ever been too. Setting quite poor and uninteresting and dirty holds. I have been told the newer one (vauxwest?) is better.
Further out of London, if you fancy exploring, you can find two very good bouldering facilities, Chimera in High Brooms, nr Tunbridge Wells (1 hour train from London Bridge) and The Climbing Experience in Maidstone (a newish huge facility that improves with every visit) yoga and other classes, slackline, a licensed bar and good cafe. I think it has the largest Bouldering on offer in the south east plus a fun wall if you have kids.
10am weekdays. 8am at weekends.
I stand corrected.
Thanks for all the answers!
Lots of votes for Stronghold; has Tottenham improved in the last few years? Or is Walthamstow now gentrified?
Yonder also looks very tempting for the yoga & work space; how does the climbing stack up with other places?
Looking at the map I think VauxWall West is the original (under the Vauxhall station arches). I thought it was fine a few years ago, but maybe a bit limited for more than a day a week. Has it grown? Is East bigger?
Also surprised by the lack of love for Mile End - I remember it as decent, but sounds like there's loads of competition these days.
My memory of the Hangar is a cramped squash court, and the routes were too hard for me
My view is that most of the walls in London are decent, so choose where you want to live based on other factors. Do you want to go climbing outside on a weekend? In that case west or north is best, and as close to a motorway junction as possible. I can be on the M4 in ten minutes which makes cragging days that much easier. Do you ever need to get to the centre of town, what do you like to do outside of climbing, etc. Then make sure that given those criteria, a wall is within an easy half hour.
A previous poster said Acton Arch was a horrible design; I think it’s pretty good and airy too, which may appeal in the pandemic era. Ravenswall is also a good centre. Harrow is excellent and worth the trek up if you’re vaguely on that side of town.
10 minutes walk from a national rail station which has one line going through it is pretty bad in my book
Fair point Mile End is pretty good for bouldering and they have a pretty decent training room too.
Nice area to live round there too.
> Yonder also looks very tempting for the yoga & work space; how does the climbing stack up with other places?
Yonder has got an excellent training setup (potentially best in London) and an extremely good comp wall (exclusively set with comp style problems). The rest of the bouldering is also well set but maybe slightly less of it than some of the other walls. I think its brilliant but not great spot if you want overhanging jug hauls.
> Also surprised by the lack of love for Mile End - I remember it as decent, but sounds like there's loads of competition these days.
Mile End has extremely good comp style setting although they are slightly limited by not having a really big comp wall (but we are splitting hairs here). Still a great wall and retains an old school feel - would be in my London top 5.
> My memory of the Hangar is a cramped squash court, and the routes were too hard for me
Well it hasn't got any bigger but they've done away with the grading (just have colours for difficulty) so you can be happily ignorant of your feebleness.
I think it all depends on your budget.
Most of the walls are pretty much the same when it comes to boulder setting. its the same 20 odd group of setters, setting across all the centres with a mix of in house peeps thrown in. So I’d say no where has better boulders than the next place.
As for training facilities.
stronghold definitely hits the top of the list.
followed by vaux east, Harrow then probably HWBP which although small hits the mark for training.
Mile End, although the board is brilliant and legendary. They definitely lack other basics for training.
Yonder are still finding their feet with the training facilities, though it keeps improving.
> 10 minutes walk from a national rail station which has one line going through it is pretty bad in my book
With 2 trains p/h off-peak, and quick connections up or down the line, The Reach takes no longer to walk to than The Castle does from Manor Park or any other station. Is that equally as bad?
No, because tube trains go through Manor House (not Manor Park) about every 2 minutes, not 2 every hour.
Compared to the walls I grew up with outside of London they’re all very good and you won’t go too far wrong.
If you’re solo the Bouldering-only walls above (surprise surprise) have the most and best-set boulders:
-Stronghold in Tottenham best for bouldering if you’re in north London
-Arch in Bermondsey (building one) is best if you’re in south or central.
-Yonder meant to be good but never been as it’s further out of the centre than Stronghold tbh
These are also both nice places to spend time in if you know what I mean. Both have good sized and well equipped training areas too. And quite good cafe areas. They are v central and are open early before and late after work so easy to get a quick hit in.
Other options, less good IMO if you’re solo unless you love autobelays:
-Westway good for routes, has a number of autobelays if you’re solo, is ok for bouldering. It’s in a leisure centre - don’t let it put you off but it does mean it’s not much of a place to hang out and have a coffee afterwards.
-Castle has a very few autobelays, ok bouldering, mainly a lead/TR place like Westway, nice cafe.
If you’re not v familiar with London geography yet I’d say beware that White Spider and the Reach are quite far out of the centre. Likely to be a (comparative) mission to get to, depending where you’re based of course. I honestly wouldn’t even say White Spider is in London at all. Good walls though and tend to be quieter.