UKH

Does anybody know if its possible to get a copy of the Frome Valley Sandstone guidebook. If so where could I get it.

Hi Jo

This has been superceded by the excellent 'Esoteric Bouldering in the Bristol Area' guidebook which you can buy from Bananafingers and Dick's Climbing. 

I don't have either book but I thought there was a bit of sport and trad in the frome valley book, which Id think wasn't in the bouldering book?

Hi ericin I have the Esoteric Bouldering in the Bristol Area guidebook but I thought there were some sport and trad routes in Frome Valley Sandstone that aren't in the Esoteric Bouldering.  

If you are thinking about doing some outdoor bouldering and live in the area I recommend getting Esoteric Bouldering in the Bristol Region.

It's out of print. Martin Crocker has some "extras" on his website. Try Mark Davies, the Pylon King on here. I can send pages if that helps

It's a great book if you can get hold of a copy! Many great days out provided. It's long out of print though and folks guard their copies closely. You could always join the Avon Mountaineering Club who have a copy for members to borrow.

That said, these days a lot of the information in the book can be peiced together from other sources.

The sport climbing is in the Bristol Sport book and the bouldering in Esoteric Bouldering. Many of the shorter trad lines from Frome Valley Sandstone actually do appear in Esoteric Bouldering as highballs. So what's left is the taller trad.

The Winterbourne Down section is available on the GWR website:

https://greatwesternrock.co.uk/winterbourne-down-extract-download/

There's an excellent documentary/film on the area which shows most of the best lines:

https://youtu.be/6-hMFLSJHbY?si=6V-rE64GvPmKCyrG

Martin Crocker also describes lines on his website, mostly odds and ends and corrections, with no topos:

https://www.martincrockerclimbing.com/s/Frome-Valley-more-routes-k9jm.pdf

I think the only area really unavailable anywhere else is the bit on Bromley Heath, which has questionable access regardless.

Somehow the mystique suits the area I think.

Thanks for all the info. When Martin's bits and pieces list came out, I added all the Frome Valley ones to the UKC Hambrook section and made photo topos of most of them

Thanks to all for corrections to my earlier post. 

When are Rockfax going to pull their fingers out and release a dedicated guide to the best sandstone climbing south of Trebanog. 

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the info.