UKC

Travelling with work, my first question is 'where's the nearest wall?', which sometimes takes you off the beaten track. Here's one from me (photos below), on the 12th floor of a residential apartment block in Singapore. There's a nice little bar to stop at on the way back to the metro station. The kids on the desk saw I was from Sheffield on my form, and wanted to know if I knew Steve McClure

Anyone else got any interesting walls?

Reminds me of n-bouldering in Hong Kong - on the 24th floor of an office block on one of the main streets. 

Closer to home, the Berghaus wall in Newcastle felt a bit odd - an unsupervised bouldering wall on the top floor of the Eldon Square shopping centre (I think it closed a few years ago).  For padding, it used to have portable gym mats that had to be dragged under the problem you wished to do.  Then after someone broke their ankle landing on the edge of a mat, they were all removed and you were told to refrain from falling!

I’ve been to that one in Hong Kong, yes very similar. Also that big outdoor lead wall at the YMCA in Kowloon which used to draw loads of spectators

I thought the mats at berghaus wall were pretty good, I regularly jumped from the top in the early 90s. Nowhere near as good as the ones at Mile end though which I seem to remember was pretty high for a bouldering wall at least in 1998

Speaking of mats, where there any at the Al Rouse Sheffield Poly wall? I can’t remember and don’t seem to have any pictures. Actually, vertical wall with bits of stone sticking out probably qualifies for inclusion anyway.

Another one was the traversing circuit of a stone school building, not too far from the Count House at Bosigran. One wag called it ‘the Red Lane of the South West’

Copenhill

https://www.copenhill.dk/aktiviteter/klatring

That reminds me of when I found myself in Dunedin in the early 90s for an academic conference. I had an afternoon off so I found an outdoorsy shop and asked how I might get in touch with local climbers. "Try the library", came the reply, which both baffled and impressed me.

Turned out there were holds bolted up the outer wall of the library building. 🙂

Rothwell wall near Leeds had a solid floor and was quite high with no ropes but the worse problem was the five a side football going on whilst you were climbing.

Stacks like that in Tokyo, and presumably other Japanese cities

How about fort purbrook wall deep underground in the armoury of a Napoleonic fort above Portsmouth complete with the necessary isolation to prevent gunpowder exploding due to spark or unshielded light. Accessed by a 100m tunnel with interconnects to three other forts on that hill. 

Always proud when someone notices the tallest climb in Denmark. Well it’s just a 80 m climbing wall, but it’s Danish. We call it Nordvaeggen - i.e. Nord Wand or North Face :p

Copenhill is the ski slope…

The lack of mats got me thinking….does anyone know if were there mats under the Al Rouse Wall at Sheffield Poly? I’ve got a mental block and can’t picture them

Car rental place in Puerto Natales. When someone wanted to get a car out through the archway you had to drag the pads out the way and stop climbing. 

Hah! Was going to mention that one. Has to be the most architecturally and historically interesting. Especially the interconnecting tunnels.

Shepshed Leisure Centre had one in what appeared to be a broom cupboard!

I vaguely recall one or two of those thin gymnastics mats but never a crash mat.

Your mention of Red Lane made me smile, I used it and Crewe flats quite a bit. I wonder if the houses they built on the land still have the chalk stains on their garden walls.

I lived in Broomhill when I first moved to Sheffield, so like you, I spent a lot of time on Red Lane around the mid ‘80s. There was a similar wall on Mushroom Lane by Crookes Valley Park which was ok until the council pointed it. I’m sure I remember a very uninspiring natural wall in Endcliffe park which was usually gopping wet.

Memories of the Al Rouse wall are a bit hazy, apart from Andy Pollitt seemingly spending whole days doing pull ups and hangs off screw on edges. The wall itself was a bit rubbish from what I remember, but that’s how they were I guess until the Foundry and The Edge opened.

Ok, this trumps everything!

Sounds like the tiny corridor wall at Hucknall Leisure Centre in the ‘80s, although anything connected with Shepshed is a clear winner..

Ha yes, wasn't Shepshed a boiler room or something? With a single judo mat that might be dragged away just as you commit to a move?

I don't think there was enough gap between the climbing wall and back wall to fit a mat in at Shepshed

I think it was the prototype for the Moat Climbing wall, which was at least bigger, but not by much

http://www.leicesterclimbs.f9.co.uk/MoatwallI.htm

Happy days when I used to instruct sessions in both venues.

I saw this one in Osaka