Most sports have
sub-cultures. It is rumoured that Subbuteo table football has a
national league, and some people go canoeing along underground
sewers. One spin-off from rock-climbing is the rarely publicised but
much-practised art of climbing on "natural" outdoor walls.
This is particularly widespread in South London, presumably to do
some violence to Mallory's famous answer, "Because it is there"
("it" being the real thing, in the form of famous cliffs
like the Sobell Sports Centre). In fact, the origins of outdoor wall
climbing in London lie north of the river, but a combination of
indoor facilities and gentrification knocked that on the head. In the
early 1970s the lovely century-old red brickwork of the towpath walks
and bridges of the Regent Street Canal, in Camden and Islington, was
turned into a high-standard playground by legendary figures like
Mickey Rock. Water Bailiffs and stomach pumps if you fell in were
among the hazards in those romantic days, but the final blows to
climbing were the mortar and trowels of council workmen as the canal
banks went up market.
Only faintly-painted signs like "Rouse's
Climb" and "Arthritis Wall" remain today of those
desperate problems. It was about this time that the Isle of Dogs
sightings began. London's Dockland is the biggest development area in
Western Europe, or possibly the world. When it rains you can taste
the saliva from the finance houses' mouths on the drops. Chris
Hoyland saw it first, and just as Elvis's "Sun" recordings
fixed the definitive image of the rock singer as the half-crazed
guitar strumming country boy singing his heart out, so his
descriptions of the dock wall exposed by McAlpines, 40ft of dimpled
granite, glistening like an Eskdale outcrop, fired the imaginations
of a generation of London climbers. For years after, the Isle of Dogs
Wall would surface occasionally, but like its fabled Loch Ness
cousin, never long enough for those who sighted it to get an A-Z
reference.
I stumbled on Cottage
Grove Wall by chance, even though it is only half-a-mile from where I
live. The graffiti was the first attraction. It was not quite up to
the "Open the second front now" which until recently
adorned a wall in Leeds, but references to "Frampton" and
"Hendrix" gave it quite a respectable age. Indeed, the
medieval spelling of "wancking" suggested a more ancient
lineage. It lies against a railway line, 300 yards south of Clapham
North tube station, 18 by 100 ft. of gnarled brickwork, Bedford best.
At first the aim was upward progress, but the ten or so vertical
lines are never climbed now. Rectangular holes just below the top
explain why. Leaving aside the perils of dogshit, you risked your
life in at least three ways: a broken back, a second later a crack on
the skull, and then a pulverised wrist as the brick to which you had
entrusted your weight landed on top of it.
So traversing became the
order of the day. Although I say it myself the full length is a
masterpiece, sustained 5a/5b climbing, never more than a few feet
above the ground. Lest you be thinking that paradise awaits on
Cottage Grove Estate, beware — there are some unpleasant features.
Like Fair Head in County Antrim, it faces the wrong way. Unless you
are in training for a winter traverse of Cloggy's West Buttress, stay
away until the spring. The small asphalt playground at its foot
doubles as a toilet for the local rag and bone man's horse, many dogs
and the occasional human. Views differ as to whether the other users
of what the local town-planners designate "a community facility"
add or detract from the ambience. A variety of sports are played,
often simultaneously.
Dave Cook: Photo Ian Smith
Bold spirits among the climbers sometimes
enlist their players to add excitement, and then "Rollerwall"
is played. The object is to hit the sideways-moving "spiders"
as local legend describes us. Tennis and footballs make this a good
game, but beware the local roller-skate hockey-players. Their
"corkies" can maim. Further south in deepest Lambeth lie
walls awaiting the next generation. At Emmanuel Road, dripping
railway arches fill the sky. I hope that when the long-awaited
Brixton Sports Centre finally opens, purpose-built indoor wall
included, some of the young "spiders" that it trains will
test their steel fingers on these sombre walls; Map Reference: 3F 77
or 89 Z8, depending on which A-Z you use.
Stop Press: The author
wishes to inform readers that urban development is now threatening
access.*
* (1985!)
Dave Cook
First Published in High-April 1985
