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Climbs 12
Rocktype Iron Rock
Altitude 145m a.s.l
Faces S

Crag features

(PM) I'm only adding this as there's nothing else in Oxfordshire. This is not the answer!

This is an old railway cutting and ironstone quarry. There's nothing left here of the quarry - it's all been filled in, but the cutting - about 3-4m at it's highest is there. There is some exposed rock - that's all you can say.

It's ironstone which is to say it's really loose, soft and flaky. Lumps come away in your fingers. Don't even think of placing gear. You might belay off trees at the top, but is it even necessary? Basically you can scramble up a couple of lines. It allows you to say you've touched rock in Oxfordshire. That's it.

The rock is actually exposed for quite a way, maybe even 5m at it's highest. Maybe one day when I've got nothing else to do I'll go and identify more routes.

21 Oct 2019. I intend to put a couple of photos on, and maybe even identify a couple of lines for the look of the thing.

Approach notes

From the B4100, Warwick Road, heading north out of Banbury, take the first left that is signposted 'Horley'. This brings you to a T junction - turn right (north) towards Horley, and you go past the Scout Camp on the left, then a few hundred metres further go down a steep hill. This is about midway between the scount ground and Horley village, so if you're in the village you've gone too far and need to go back south. Park anywhere sensible on the road. About half-way up the hill is where the old ironstone railway line once crossed the road. There is a pathway heading west alongside the old railway - take this and follow it, About 400m in, the old railway went through a small cutting  This is it! Don't get excited now. 

Access Advice

Not known. To be determined.

There's no obvious reason why you can't access this, and it is on a footpath, although there are no 'footpath' signs, but it's clearly a reasonably well-used path probably for dog walkers. The land goes right past the Scout Camp so might be owned by the Scouts. If I go again and run into problems I'll post here, but given how rubbish it is I can't see there being a big problem with hordes of climbers every weekend!

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