Inspires: the art of climbing
The rise of bouldering
Climbing is now a mainstream sport, having featured in the last two Olympic Games, with around 1 million regular climbers in the UK alone. It's considered one of the best all-body workouts and is also a highly sociable sport.
Bouldering is a specific discipline of climbing which is the most accessible, and is seeing a 20% year on year rise in popularity. It is also the most artistic of climbing disciplines because modern climbing holds allow 'routes' to be planned on walls that wouldn't be possible in the outdoor climbing world.
This means the 'route setters' - the people who devise and plan and test these routes - are some of the most important people in the sport after the athletes.
It's their creativity that inspires more and more people to turn to one of the fastest growing sports in the world - which Team GB won a Gold Medal for in Paris, with Toby Roberts.
The world's first professional routesetter?
What does Sheffield have to do with all of this, you may ask? Firstly, route-setting as a discipline was created by folks from these parts. Chris Gore was originally chief World Cup route setter from 1989 and throughout the 90s, and handed over to Neil Bentley (who is still around in the city) for the 1999 World Championships.
In terms of being paid to be a route setter as a profession, it's believed to be either Percy Bishton or Graeme Alderson, co-owners of The Climbing Works (the world's first indoor bouldering center) and the renowned CWIF international competition.
Which of them was technically first to be gainfully employed in this weird and wonderful job is hotly contested between the two, but all we know is that it was definitely one of them, back sometime around 1991.
Fast forward to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics though and it was Percy who was the Head Routesetter for bouldering, as the sport made its debut at the world's most prestigious sporting competition.
An interview with the first ever Olympic head route setter for bouldering
Not only did Percy have the honour of being the head route setter for bouldering at the Tokyo Olympics, he was also part of the team route-setting at the 2024 Paris Olympics too.
This interview, courtesy of EP Climbing (who made the 'Titan' Olympic wall) gives a bit more context to how Percy ended up doing what he does, the importance of it, and the physical and mental demands it entails.
So when we say Sheffield inspires the art of climbing, we really mean it!
Not only has this art form changed the way people climb, it has opened the doors to a global audience and developed in ways that couldn't have been imagined at the time.
Through Percy inspiring others to route set, and continually setting challenges that keep the sport fresh and dynamic, Sheffield has become home to climbing not just because of our natural assets, but by our people too.
Team GB and Sheffield
It's no accident that Team GB Climbing based themselves in Sheffield in the build up to the Tokyo Olympics, given the unparalleled access to the outdoors with the famous Burbage and Stanage gritstone edges both within our city limits.
Performance coaches like Rachel Carr call Sheffield home, the training facilities at Unit E at The Climbing Works were specifically developed for Team GB athletes like Toby Roberts to challenge their boundaries, and we also have incredible public access walls, including the replica Tokyo wall at the Climbing Hangar.
Molly Thompson-Smith, another Team GB climber based in Sheffield, is inspiring other aspects of the sport - namely in championing the drive to increase diversity in the sport, with a study in 2021 suggesting that only 7% of people taking part in climbing are from non-white backgrounds.
When you add all of this to the route-setting pedigree, it's clear that the UK capital of climbing is made up of people who are inspiring the progression of the sport.
A bit of history: geography and people
If you didn't know, Sheffield is the 2nd greenest city in the world by percentage greenspace: 61% in total, with a lot of that coming from the Peak District National Park (which makes up approximately 1/3 of the city space).
The gritstone edges are therefore the playground for any budding climbers, as they are easily reached from the city centre by foot, pedal, bus or car, and is why you frequently see groups of people carrying large soft crash mats on their backs around the city as they get to these unique and world famous spots.
From students looking to study to professionals willing to relocate, it is this proximity and the urge to spend some spare (or all of their) time trying to get up seemingly impossible and brutal rock faces, that has attracted so many people to Sheffield.
The hotspots of Stanage and Burbage are well documented, but it was the legendary JW Puttrell (who many regard as the godfather of rock climbing) who pioneered a lot of the routes at Wharncliffe Crags in the 1880s.
He then started documenting routes around the Peak District, with over 150 first ascents and so, was certainly at the forefront as rock climbing emerged as a new pastime in the UK.
That sort of legacy helped inspire the city to become a destination for climbers, and since then world famous names such as Jerry Moffat, Ben Moon, Steve Mclure, the Wideboyz, Lucy Creamer, Ian Fitz, Ian Parnell, Joe Simpson (Touching the Void), and Alan James (who created Rockfax and UK Climbing, two staple features of the climbing world), have all called Sheffield home.
From old to new
UK Climbing recently brought two of the biggest names in climbing, Adam Ondra and Magnus Midtbø, to Sheffield.
They were shown how two of the original names in the sport (Jerry Moffat and Ben Moon) trained back in the day before climbing gyms, and were inspired by what was around them to hone their technique and ultimately shape this novel form of sport.
For a real trip down memory lane, check out THE REAL THING, the first ever bouldering film, starring Jerry and Ben.
Holds and manufacturing
The other aspect that is crucial to this incredible sport, once the route setting and climbers are in place, is the physical holds that actually get used on the wall. They need to have the right amount of grip and the right shape and dimensions to allow these feats of endurance and ability to happen.
Yannick Flohe on the 'cartwheel' problem at Sheffield's CWIF 2024, set by Max Ayrton.
And wouldn't you just know it - Sheffield designers and manufacturers are also at the forefront of the game in this respect too, thanks to our long standing history in advanced manufacturing that can help companies here develop the best products.
Beastmaker are arguably one of the best known household names. Made purely out of wood, you'll see their 'fingerboards' (literally a wooden board that you hang from to increase grip and finger strength) above door frames and in camper vans all around the world.
Beta climbing designs, Core Climbing, Enigma and Filth are great examples of long established companies, who not only design everything here and are fiercely proud of their home city, but also manufacture it all here too thanks to the great facilities available in the city.
We have newcomers to the scene too, such as Contact, established in 2021 by Max Ayrton (a renowned route setter) and Alex Waterhouse (Team GB climber).
As well as this 'hard' side of the business, there's the 'softer' side too - the legendary Moon Climbing (clothing, apparel and accessories, created by Ben Moon), and Scavenger (re-purposing old climbing materials into accessories) are both famous Sheffield companies, and there's also one of the longest standing independent outdoor and climbing shops in the UK based just down the bottom of Stanage Edge in Hathersage, Outside, which is central to the scene, in and around the region.
These businesses, alongside so many more in the outdoor industries sector, are part of what contributed to a GVA (gross value add) of £53 million as part of a 2015 report which outlined Sheffield's move to coin the phrase it is associated with today: The Outdoor City.
In all likelihood, that figure is significantly higher now in 2025, given the rise of climbing as a sport, and the importance Sheffield holds in inspiring it's development and progression.
CWIF: world-renowned headliner of the Festival of the Outdoors
CWIF stands for the Climbing Works International Festival, and it's a headline event of the annual Festival of the Outdoors in Sheffield. It's world renowned first and foremost, because it's a chance to climb on competition level routes set by Percy Bishton and his team (which includes guest setters).
For World Cup and Olympic climbers, this means that every March, CWIF is the ultimate warm-up event on some of the toughest and most innovative routes, set by the world's best.
Every year Sheffield therefore welcomes climbers from around the globe to take part in this amazing competition, which is free for anyone to enter, meaning you can go and stand shoulder to shoulder with some sporting greats (there's even a fancy dress element).
There are only limited tickets to watch at The Climbing Works, but it is live-streamed around the world, and we also put on a free 'watch party' in the Winter Garden for anyone who wants to share the atmosphere with the city's avid climbing scene.
Make yourself at home in the climbing capital of the UK
Shauna Coxsey was the first British athlete to compete in Olympic climbing at Tokyo, and despite a barrage of knee issues still managed to finish tenth.
She continues to inspire people the world over to take up the sport and she's not only a resident but also a massive advocate for Sheffield. Here's a video we produced with her to showcase what a great city this is to put down roots, as well as climb routes.
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