Harehope Quarry

Grid Ref: NU092201   Aspect: S   Routes: 19   Max Length: 20   Average Length: 15
Altitude: 90 mtrs   Walk in: 2 mins   Route quality: *

From the village of Eglingham on the B6346 road north of Alnwick, continue north for approximately 1 mile to a road junction on the right, signposted to Harehope. Follow this narrow road for about 100m to a gate on the left which gives access to the quarry. Park in the lay-by on the main road, opposite the junction, or just past the junction on the right.

General:

This is a Fell Sandstone quarry with a southerly aspect, sheltered on all sides by trees and has some routes of quality to offer. The main face is over 15m high and some 40m long consisting of vertical walls and corners with horizontal faults, ledges and occasional pockets. Forming an open book corner with the main face, the right wing is composed of a wall 10m high by 9m long, split at half height by a horizontal ledge. A broken vegetated section leads to a large overhanging corner 12m high with horizontal faults and ledges. Generally the sandstone is good quality but tends in places to have a course grained texture that can cause some sandiness. The rock in the large overhanging corner, however, has a biscuit like quality in places and no routes have been recorded here. Please note that the quarry is quite legitimately used as waste storage for the farm, so please take care when accessing the routes as waste disposal sites can be dangerous. Presumably the quarry will deteriorate as a climbing venue as the waste accumulates. There is no public access to the quarry, but the farmer has kindly allowed access.

Rock:  

Fell Sandstone Carboniferous, Dinantian

Quarried.

Routes/Bouldering:  

Routes:

A couple of quite good routes, but the experience is spoiled by the presence of the waste.

Problems:

None

History:

Gordon Thompson climbed a couple of the easier lines in the 1970's, when the crag was 3 metres higher (there is a 3 metre layer of rubbish on the floor now) but nothing was published. No further development appears to have taken place until the autumn of 1992 when Nigel Jamieson drew its existence to the attention of Nick Steen and Malcolm Lowerson. Nigel also enlisted the aid of Tony McNamee and together they put in a lot of "spade work" to produce three good routes in the "open book" corner. By the end of 1992 the majority of routes had been climbed. However, on four of the routes that were lacking in natural protection it was considered reasonable to place single pitons. This caused a difference of opinion regarding the ethics of placing pitons in sandstone in Northumberland. As a result, the pitons were removed and the routes re-graded accordingly.