Boulder Shack
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About

Built by the community, for the community.

Boulder Shack opened in 2017 because local climbers picked up drills and built it. We are not-for-profit, and still run for the people who climb in it.

Volunteers in green I Helped Build Boulder Shack T-shirts, sat on stacks of plywood with drills and mugs

The build

A lot of people, and a lot of T-nuts.

In 2017 an empty unit on Empress Road was turned into a climbing wall by the people who wanted to climb in it. Volunteers painted the walls, floors and ceilings, built the café and the reception desk, and screwed in T-nuts by the thousand, keeping count on the wall in pink paint.

A crowdfunding campaign supported the build. It raised over £30,000, which went towards the build costs. It did not pay for the whole thing, but it helped, and it showed how many people wanted this place to exist.

  • Volunteers working at benches in the unit, the first wall panels up behind them
  • A tally of T-nuts fitted, drawn on the wall in pink paint and coloured in as they went
  • Three volunteers kneeling on a sheet of plywood, fitting T-nuts
  • The timber frame of the reception desk going up in front of a half painted wall
  • A newly built wall panel with its first few holds on, a ladder beside it
  • The café full of people on opening day, the finished walls behind them

The logo

We asked the community to draw it.

Before there was a logo there was a pile of drawings. Children, parents, climbers and designers all sent in their idea of what Boulder Shack should look like. These are a few of them.

  • A felt tip logo with a little hut either side of the words Boulder Shack
  • A logo drawn as a wooden shack with the name burnt into its roof
  • A child’s drawing of a climber on a wall under the words Boulder Shack
  • A logo made of climbing holds arranged in a ring
  • A child’s drawing of a climber in a helmet among coloured holds
  • A logo of a climber on a shack roof, in green, yellow and red
  • A pencil drawing of a wooden sign hanging from a climbing hold
  • A logo with a climber hanging off a large round hold
  • A child’s drawing of a climber in green on a brown wall
  • A logo of a green house with a mountain range inside it
  • A child’s drawing of a climbing wall with a stick figure beside it
  • The words Boulder Shack Climbing Gym in heavy hand drawn lettering

2026

Same Shack, new look.

In 2026 the logo changed again. The blue and pink mark made way for the Shack one you see across this site.

The look is new. What it stands for is not.

What it is now

Somewhere between work and home.

A climbing wall is a room with plywood in it. What makes it worth coming back to is who is standing on the mats.

For a lot of people Boulder Shack has become a third space: not work, not home, but the place in between where we all come together. People turn up on their own and leave with a group.

Everyone means everyone. Paraclimbing, a women, trans and non-binary night, an LGBTQ+ night, and a morning session for the over 50s. Nobody here is the wrong sort of climber.

  • A ukulele band playing on the mats under the wall
  • A climber laughing in the café
  • A competitor reaching up through the cave under coloured lights
  • Three climbers in Older Shack T-shirts looking up at a problem
  • A film night, the mats full of people watching a screen
  • A line of climbers arm in arm on the mats at a Christmas social, one of them still on the wall behind
  • A group of climbers talking between attempts at a competition
  • A climber in a loud shirt drinking tea on the café sofa

Meet the teamThe caféWhat’s on

Grown here

From junior club to the squad, and sometimes onto the team.

Young climbers who start in our junior clubs can move up to the squad and compete. Some of them have grown up here and now work with us.

The Junior Climbing Club

The Boulder Shack squad and their coaches in matching blue T-shirts
A young climber in a Boulder Shack T-shirt mid move at the Youth Climbing Series

Who we work with

Part of the sport, not just a wall.

  • British Mountaineering Council logo

    British Mountaineering Council

    Every year we host a round of the BMC Youth Climbing Series, the British Mountaineering Council’s competition for young climbers.

    About our comps

  • NICAS logo

    NICAS

    We are a provider of the National Indoor Climbing Award Schemes, all the way to Level 5.

    Schools and groups

Beyond the Shack

It did not stop at our own front door.

Tim Miller, who started out here, went on to set up Community Climbs and the Independent Climbing Wall Collective. We are proud that what began in this building now reaches well beyond it.

  • Independent Climbing Wall Collective logo

    Independent Climbing Wall Collective

    Bringing independent climbing walls together. We are a founding member, and a Boulder Shack membership gets you free visits to the other walls in it.

    Membership

  • Community Climbs logo

    Community Climbs

    Removing the barriers people have to climbing. Every pound it raises goes on providing climbing to people who will benefit from it.

    communityclimbs.org (opens in a new tab)

Boxes of new climbing holds being unpacked and sorted on the mats

Not-for-profit

The money stays in the building.

We have always run Boulder Shack as a not-for-profit. In November 2025 we made it official. What you spend goes on holds, setting, coaches and keeping the place open, not out to somebody who has never climbed in it.

Prices and membership

Come and see the place.

Never climbed before? Book an induction and you can climb here whenever you like. Been climbing for years? Just turn up.

Book a climbGet in touch