Rock climbing and bouldering in Shropshire

Nesscliffe is a crag of national importance and is the best-known crag in Shropshire. There are also a few hidden gems throughout the region offering a variety of rock climbing and bouldering options.

1 - Nesscliffe is a series of impressive quarries and is famous for its striking and bold trad routes on soft red sandstone. The routes here are generally based around pockets and utilising the numerous breaks that intersect the cliffs, with grades ranging from E2 to E9, with many excellent routes in the mid E-grade range. There is also plenty of excellent bouldering to be had at Nesscliffe. The good spread of grades (Fb3 to Fb8b) and styles offers something for everyone in a compact area.

2 - Grinshill is another excellent bouldering venue, scattered throughout the woods and hillside. Grinshill offers a range of styles and grades (Fb3 to Fb7c+) on rounded natural sandstone outcrops and straight cut quarries.

3 - Llanymynech Rocks is situated on the English-Welsh border and offers trad and sport routes on quarried limestone rock. The crag has a mixture of adventurous trad climbing, and some superb sport climbing on steep rock up to 35m long.

4 - Ippikins Rock on Wenlock Edge is a limestone crag with trad routes between 10m and 20m in height. There are good routes across a wide range of grades, but the crag is particularly superb for middle to lower grades.

5 - Pontesford Rocks offers a good range of easy to mid-grade trad routes on Igneous rocks, with some multi-pitch routes up to 80m long.

6 - Stiperstones, set in the Shropshire Moors offer some easy trad routes on the summit tors. Though these routes are only around 10m long, they are at an altitude of over 500m, and their bleakness makes the character of the climbing more mountainous.

7 - Harmer Hill is a sandstone crag near Shrewsbury offering some short trad and sport climbing.

8 - Norton Wood is a limestone crag that offers mainly sport climbing and some trad climbing. There are over 60 routes in the lower to mid-grade range.

9 - Brockers Crag is a pebbly gritstone rock offering step powerful bouldering on good abrasive overhanging holds.

10 - Monument Boulders are coarse-grained sandstone located near Terror Rocks above Llangollen. There are over 70 problems with the majority of these in the easier grades.

Shropshire rock climbing guidebooks. The comprehensive guidebook is called Shropshire, The West Midlands and The Marches Rock Climbing Guidebook. It covers all the trad rock climbing, sport climbing and bouldering in Shropshire that is described on this page. The Clwyd Limestone Rock Climbing Guidebook covers the sport climbing and some trad climbing at Llanymynech, as well as many other crags across the border in Wales.

Shropshire climbing season. Basically whenever it is dry! The different crags offer a wide variety of climbing disciplines make it possible to climb through the year, but especially from the early spring to the late autumn. Shropshire is often in the rain shadow of Wales and is a great alternative to those who have been rained off in Snowdonia.