About us | boulderbrighton.com

ABOUT US

Meet the team

Our staff team are great. Click to see who we are!

Tom and James

In a nutshell

We run an exciting indoor bouldering centre just 5 minutes' walk from Portslade train station on the Victoria Road Trading Estate. After many years of planning, searching for a site and making it happen we finally found the perfect venue and opened our doors on March 16th 2013.

We are passionate about rock climbing. We've been climbing together since the last millennium(!) and for us it is about fun, challenge and excitement, as well as being a great way to keep fit. We have climbed all over the UK and Europe, and over the years we have used countless different indoor climbing walls around the world. At Boulder Brighton, we think we've built our favourite.

Tom & James, Directors

female competition finalist on the comp wall with crowd watching

We love bouldering

Bouldering is a fast-growing branch of rock climbing, where people climb without ropes over safety matting at heights of up to 4 or 5 metres. There are no knots to tie, no harnesses to put on - leaving you free to enjoy climbing in its purest, simplest form. It's also the most accessible form of climbing for beginners. You don't need expensive kit or experience - just turn up in some comfortable clothes and we'll have you on the wall in minutes. Read more about bouldering on our "What is bouldering?" page.

If you're already a climber, you'll have loads to keep you occupied. The site has over 1,000 square metres to play with which allows us to set more than 200 different problems around the centre. Fontainebleau-style circuits help group these together and set big challenges. We've converted a vacant warehouse, you can see pictures around this site.

youth climber talking a tricky blue rails problem on the duck boulder at bb

Facilities

We have an amazing site for the centre with floor space of over 1,000 square metres, which we’ve filled with exciting bouldering structures. This allows us to set up to 200 different climbing problems, with grades ranging from the very easy to the very hard. There are vertical walls, overhangs, slabs, a roof/cave section and a top-out boulder (THE DUCK) to get those fingers pumping.

As well as a wide range of bouldering walls we have changing rooms with lovely showers, a training and conditioning room where you can warm up, warm down and work on your weaknesses, and a café serving delicious, locally roasted coffee and locally baked cakes and snacks. There's also a shop selling climbing shoes, chalk and other bouldering essentials. We hope we've built a relaxed and friendly place to hang out, climb, and meet new people.

the training area, including campus rungs, endurance circuit board and the 40 degree Moon board

...for climbers

If you're an experienced climber looking to train or just spend hours climbing high-quality, testing problems, you won't be disappointed. Our in-house setting team is supplemented by visiting guest setters, giving us a good variety of styles of boulders to try, from the very easy to the very hard.

We invest heavily in new holds and volumes, so there's always something exciting to get stuck into.

Our training areas include fingerboards, campus rungs, a pull-up bar, a 40 degree Moon board, light weights for conditioning, an exercise bike, rowing machine, dips bars and stretching space.

a group instruction session

...for complete beginners

Indoor rock climbing is one of the fastest growing sports in the UK, offering a unique mental and physical challenge to people of all ages and abilities. This means that many people now know someone who climbs, or have seen rock climbing in the cinema and on TV, but not everyone knows how easy it can be to take it up as a new sport.

It’s a great way to keep fit and have fun while you’re at it, and at our centre you won’t need specialist equipment or expertise to have a go, just some comfortable clothes and the urge to try something new.

Our Get Bouldering sessions are the perfect first step, and are great value too, see details of how to get started here.

youth desperately holding onto the lip of the duck with crowd cheering

...for schools

Our centre will be an excellent resource for schools in Brighton & Hove and its surroundings. Tom has more than 10 years’ teaching experience and we will put this to great use, creating fun and educational sessions for school groups.

This will move beyond standard physical education, and also include curriculum-based sessions where students can learn about Maths, Science, English or Languages through interactive, climbing-based lessons – fun for the students, but also a unique way to learn.

the crowd at a bb comp cheering a successful top in a finals problem

...for the community

We want rock climbing to be truly a sport for everyone, and we will strive to make sure that our centre is used by people from all parts of the local community, actively pursuing ways to increase social inclusion.

Rock climbing is an excellent way to encourage team-building and self-confidence, and can be used as a framework for a wide range of community projects. We want everyone from youth groups to support groups for the unemployed to benefit from the centre together.