THE WANNEYSClimbing Club
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Our history · Chapter one
Where we came from, what we've climbed and the ground our name stands on. It's chapter one: plenty of the story still lives in members' heads and lofts, and we're writing it down as it turns up.
The River Wansbeck has long been nicknamed the Wanney, and “the Wilds of Wanney” is the old Tyneside name for the open, empty country where it rises: whinstone and sandstone edges, loughs, forestry and moor, with Border Reiver history in every valley.
We reckon our name comes from that phrase rather than straight from the crag. If you were there at the start and know the real story, tell us.
Climbers were on the Wanneys long before we were. In the 1890s Geoffrey Winthrop Young explored the crags of the Wanneys, Peel Crag and Simonside with George and Raymond Bicknell of Gosforth, and the first recorded routes on Great Wanney date from the early 1900s, among the earliest documented climbing in Northumberland.
It's the ground our name stands on, and we're proud to carry it.
We were up and running by 1974 at the latest. That year Keswick Mountain Rescue Team listed us among the clubs and supporters who donated to the team, in the same column as the Fell & Rock and the Keswick Mountaineering Club.
We could well be older than that, and we don't yet know when we started. If you were climbing with us in the early seventies, or before, tell us how it began.
Ratcheugh is ours in a way few crags are. We developed it route by route and produced our own small, hand-printed guide, complete with hand-drawn diagrams. The Northumbrian Climbing Guide still credits the work, and many of the route names climbers use there today are ours.
We're hunting for a copy of that guide. If you've got one, or you drew those diagrams, get in touch.
We've never stuck to our local crags. There's a member's video of our trip to the Setesdal valley in Norway still on YouTube, and winter hut meets and Scottish winter weekends have been part of our year for as long as anyone can remember.
Geoffrey Winthrop Young and the Bicknell brothers explore the Wanneys, Peel Crag and Simonside.
First recorded routes on Great Wanney.
The Wanneys are founded, some time before 1974. When, and by whom? Tell us.
Our earliest record so far: we're among the donors to Keswick Mountain Rescue Team.
We develop Ratcheugh Crag and hand-print our own guide.
We head to the Setesdal valley, Norway.
Hut meets and Scottish winter weekends.
We renew our BMC affiliation and put the logbook online.
A route, a trip, a story worth keeping.
This is chapter one. Members past and present hold far more of our story than any guidebook. If you've got tales, photos, an old copy of the Wanneys newspaper or the Ratcheugh guide, send us a message and we'll sort out the best way to get them to us.
Nothing with people in it goes up without their say-so.