Oakwood Climbing Centre — Attraction in Bracknell

EDITED: I have reduced my rating as I have noticed over the last year or so it has changed. A large section of this climbing centre has been set for competition style climbing, making a lot of it essentially off limits for most.

I understand a variety of routes is essential for any centre, and this wouldn't be so bad were it not for how they utilise their space: there are consistently large sections of the walls with gaps without climbing holds, making it look like it's half-finished. They could easily put more routes on the (very large) walls they have, opening it up to climbers of all abilities and reducing the amount of time they need to be resetting it.

As it is, the resetting seems to happen a lot, meaning a fair amount of the time half the centre is unavailable anyway, and what is there tends to look 50% done. There are other centres in the area that, while they have a smaller wall space, utilise it far more efficiently, meaning there are actually many more routes to try per metre, and of varying grades, rather than blocking certain sections out by it being entirely too difficult. This also means they are not doing route setting as much.

A further issue with the route setting is that I cannot seem to find any calendar info of when they plan to do it, either on their website or facebook. This often leads to me going there and finding that, yet again, half the place is under construction. It would be nice to be able to know when this is happening and avoid these times.

I will also echo what has been said here by others and that is that there seems to be large groups of children most days that are running about without any spatial awareness (as they do), going in front of people about to climb, running under other climbers, and generally just being in the way. This means you need to be extra careful and it can also they sometimes make certain areas off limits entirely to any adults, again limiting what you can do. I have heard staff also echo frustrations at this and I sympathise, but perhaps restricting the size of these groups further may help.

Old review: Great centre, has a lot of bouldering area so you are free to climb alone and don't have to rely on a belay partner for top roping. Having said that there is a section of 10 metre (ish) wall for those with climbing partners and also a few auto-belays. They have a top-out section, caving area, lots of overhangs and a weights section as well for general fitness. All round a lot to do there. They even have...

Such a great place! Never been a sporty person before but this place keeps you coming back! The staff are super friendly, if your ever stuck the team are always willing to go that extra mile to help you out, it’s like a little family with the people that come to climb here everyone talks to everyone so it’s a great social environment to meet new people and at first I never expected to even climb with other people but then not before long I found myself diving into climbing talk with others; it’s fair to say I have the bug! Ahah.There is a real mixture of abilities and all shapes and sizes here too so youl never feel like you have to be a certain type of person which is what is so great in the climbing culture you really can just be yourself! The atmosphere you just can’t fault it. The cafe is super too lovely food, lovely coffee and excellent service.The cafe alone is a great place to hang out in general; I see many people even working in the cafe area on laptops as they have lovely comfy sofas and tables too with a great glass viewing area of the centre so you can watch from above after a climb! Or even if your not a climber families come here too which I think is really nice that they can watch or relax with a coffee. The facilities here caters for everyone. It’s clean, welcoming and youl never get bored. I recommend anyone who is thinking of trying a new sport to seriously give this place a go! The routes are graded well, some can sometimes be tricky but then very satisfying when you achieve it and I believe it would be boring if it wasn’t a little challenging at some parts and that way you wouldn’t get any better so I think they are doing well on this. The prices are very reasonable too, I personally joined to the membership because i found it to be more worth it as I climb 2-3 times a week if I can. I had a lesson recently with Richard he is a very good instructor, he installed a lot more confidence in me and taught me the auto belay system, I also have had a few tips from Leo given to me and Laura and they are all awesome people that are genuine and have a lot of experience and knowledge that are willing to share which is great. Big thumbs up to...

Setting is getting less and less interesting. The setting team seem to be much keener on setting V6+ routes and phone in anything else. The comp wall section in particular is some of the most interesting shaped wall, but is almost exclusively set with much harder grading, taking away a lot of potential for non-elite level climbers.

The setting schedule is always over ambitious and overruns, taking large portions of the centre out of action during peak hours. The preference seems to be to tackle large sections of the centre at once. This has the effect of closing off a half to a third of the centre for multiple days at a time. Compared to places like Hangar that set a smaller sections on a weekly schedule it's very frustrating. The centre also closes off sections during peak climbing periods for church activities, something to check before coming as there's no discount for half the centre being unavailable.

Oakwood also hasn't managed to open the cafe back up since it closed years ago. The sad empty kitchen upstairs is a reminder that the place used to be on the up and pretty nice for a post-climb coffee and cake, or for non-climbers to have a reason to pop in.

It's a shame as a few years ago Oakwood was one of the better climbing centres in the area. The only reason we go now is because it's geographically central for our...