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The Castle’s Routes

by Mike Langley - Head Route Setter

This place is huge - so many lines, so many routes to set! The Castle currently has 450 set routes over 95 lines. We have a great mix of leading and top roping, so if you’re a total beginner or one of the country's hardest route climbers there is always loads here for you to do.

We have a massive range of slabs, featured walls, splitter cracks, roofs, off-widths, stepped roofs, flat panels and long overhangs. The Castle’s routes are the most varied and have some of the best setting in the country. The setters get to make use of the full range of angles, features and walls making great climbs for everyone.

The Facts:

• Over 1000 sqare metres of walls
• 450 routes
• 95 climbing lines of which 54 are top rope and 41 are lead
• Grades from F4 to F8a or UK 4a to 6c/7a
• Routes up to 12.5 metres high

Regular guest setting from one of the worlds best route climbers, Steve McClure, ensures a little bit of spice in the main lead area. Other recent guest setters include British Lead and Boulder Champion Gaz Parry and in-house setter and British Team climber Audrey Seguy.

The 400+ routes are set by a varied team of around 15 setters, who between them re-set the routes on a four month basis ensuring constant clean, new and inspiring routes. At the Castle we also strive for grading consistency so have an experienced team of four regular route testers. One of these, the Routes Manager, climbs all new routes in the centre.

There is no rock in London so the plastic is our rock - Climbing at the Castle is not practice for real rock climbing, it is rock climbing. You won’t find more passionately set routes throughout the whole grade range any where else in the country!

Bouldering at The Castle

Like the routes at The Castle we don’t like to do things by half’s when it comes to bouldering. The Castle»s bouldering is generally regarded as some of the best in the Country. Why? With 6 massive areas, the quickest turnover of new problems anywhere in the UK plus more celebrity guest setters then you can shake a stick at, we have all the right ingredients for a brilliant bouldering experience.

Our range of boulder problems is well considered and we will always have stacks to go at no matter if you are a just starting out or a honed beast.

The Facts:

• 6 separate areas
• 195 set problems at any given time
• 30 traverses
• 2 circuits
• Grades range V0- to V10
• Area re-set every week
• Regular Winter bouldering competitions

We know that bouldering is so many different things to so many people so we have put a lot of thought into our choice of wall design, giving us realistic featured walls, top out walls, angled panels, slabs, curved ply, roof, articulating and steep walls. Our team of setters guided by Nationally qualified setter Mike Langley works hard to ensure a great range of problems, be-it an easy adventurous beginner’s problem, technical slabs, juggy roof traverses or steep power problems.

We run a monthly 20-problem ‘Boulder Ladder’ competition designed to help our customers gauge their progress... and win a few £25 vouchers along the way. We also have a full 35 problem coloured circuit and the now infamous “King of the Mezz” winter bouldering competition.

Have fun,

Mike