Pennine Lines w/c 20 oct 2025
|| Damp, mild || The end of the limestone? ||
April Sample Page || 2026 Calendar
|| Focus On... ||
Peak Landscapes 2026 Calendar
How quickly we forget. After a week of uniquely dull weather, the type of weather that is uniquely British, it’s easy to forget that sunrises and sunsets actually exist. It simply got darker, then got lighter again, some hours later. Trapped under a solid grey sky, too thick for the sun to penetrate, no wind to move things along, no rain to add a frisson of peril, we now know what the Chernobyl reactor feels like; encased in a concrete sarcophagus from horizon to horizon. So in putting together this year's (well, next year’s) calendar it was nice to remind myself that it’s not always like that, thankfully, and indeed sunrises and sunsets do actually happen. It wasn’t all just a dream.
All the images in the 2026 calendar, pretty much, will be from the eastern gritstone edges on the periphery of Sheffield. I caveat that with ‘pretty much’ as this is a moveable feast, decisions are made and unmade all the time until I hit the button to actually fire off the print order. In the interest in reaching a well-rounded selection of images which will be palatable to the wider public (and not my own particular tastes) I take great stock in the feedback obtained from my creative consultancy feedback focus group, bouncing ideas back and forth all the time until the final selection is settled upon, although to be fair not on evenings when she’s got Boxercise. Hopefully it won’t come to a coin toss, but the archives are pretty stacked I have to say…
So what is it about the eastern grit edges that make them so special? Clearly the proximity to the city is a big part of it, not least because it’s allowed so many of us to experience these places in the first place, we’ve been up there in all weathers, we’ve seen the snow, the flowering heather and we’ve experienced that golden light at the end of a long day’s climbing, trying to fit in that one last route in the fading smokey dusk light before dark. The eastern grit crags are often referred to as an escape, an escape from mundane urban life. I’m not convinced this is the entire picture, painting them as some sort of bonus add-on, and optional extra. Influential Australian landscape photographer Peter Dombrovskis once said:
“When you go out there you don’t get away from it all, you get back to it all. You come home to what is important. You come home to yourself.”
He wasn’t talking about the grit, more likely the Tasmanian wilderness, but you know……similar vibes, he was onto something.
Back to the practicalities of this coming year’s calendar, as with last year this is available as a pre-order only, I won’t be holding stock of these, so you need to order or miss out. I will close orders on 14th November to give us time for the print run and to deal with the logistics of packing and shipping them all to you in early December in good time for Christmas. There’s also a pickup option for anyone local to Sheffield too. With one fell swoop you can sort out all your Christmas shopping for your relatives here - you’re welcome. And to everyone who’s already ordered one, a huge thanks goes out. It all helps to edge me closer to being able to buy a pair of Sportivas at full RRP, or at least that’s the dream.
Peak Visitors || Mother Cap
|| Nottingham Climbing Centre - Lenton ||
This weekend I was luckily enough to be invited to wave a camera around and generally harass the clientele at the new NCC Lenton wall in Nottingham. I don’t normally drive south of Sheffield on the M1 without good reason (usually leaving the country) but I made a rare exception here; this is a great wall, run by a good team with some great problem setting and a nice atmosphere, even though there’s still more to come - the pending training room looks like it has huge potential. It was great to catch up with a few people and meet a few new faces - thanks to everyone who came and said hello!
The footfall seemed genuinely pretty impressive for a first day, people must have heard there was also an air hockey table and a pool table in the mix…. To cap it off British climbing legend Steve McClure was on hand running workshops throughout the day. So whether you just wanted to work on your backspin or cue ball control, or needed advice on when it’s appropriate to waive the winner-stays-on rule, you were well catered for. If you’re in the Nottingham area it’s well worth a couple of hours of your time to check it out.
|| Recently Through The Lens ||
A Hope Valley inversion before the grey weather descended, and two homes of very differing flavours of grey rock; Raven Tor and Slipstones.
|| Fresh Prints ||
Finally, if you’re still after a few Christmas present ideas and a calendar isn’t floating your boat then sit tight as I’m hoping to manage an update to the Print Shop in the next few weeks. But right now here's couple of autumn favourites from the Print Shop.
