Berryhill
| Grid Ref: NT938403 Aspect: S Routes: 32 Max Length: 15 Average Length: 6 | Warning |
| Altitude: 75 mtrs Walk in: 5 mins Route quality: ** Bouldering quality: ** |
The crag lies roughly mid way between Wooler and Berwick, close to the village of Etal. About 11/2 kilometres north of Etal on the B6354 a farm lane leads off to the east. Parking is available on the side of the lane before the farm is reached. The top of the crag lies beyond the farm and can be reached in 5 minutes. Please ask at the farm for permission before climbing.
General
A pleasant sandstone crag facing south and reaching a height of 15 metres. Although the rock in places must be treated with care, this crag is a beginner's paradise: there are numerous routes in the easier grades on slabs, walls and cracks. There are a couple of very steep harder lines on doubtful rock.
Rock
Fell Sandstone Carboniferous, Dinantian
Good on all of the easier routes.
Access
Ask at farm
Other interesting stuff
Millstones were quarried here, and allegedly there is a blank millstone in the rock where extraction failed.
History
The crag has been climbed on for a long while, Ken Macdonald ascended Marcher Lord in the early seventies, but it was only in the 1979 edition of the guidebook that the routes were named and graded. Since then development has been sporadic, many new lines attempting to fill already small gaps or providing variations to existing routes. There have, however, been some notable exceptions. In 1982, Bob Smith accepted the challenge of the big roof to produce Death or Glory. At the same time he climbed the equally difficult, but slightly less scary, Do or Die. Eight years later Bob returned and, on one day, climbed three new lines including Much Ado About Nothing and, with Andy Birtwistle, the difficult Legal Separation. In 1992 Karl Telfer, in the company of his brother Graham, added Faye of Flying to the main overhang while in the previous year the pair, with Joe Gilhespy, found an excellent and independent line to the right of Marcher Lord to give This Pedestrian. Tim Catterall, visiting the crag in September 1994 added a number of additional lines, A Pocket Full of Lichenight being the best.