It’s been a bit of a struggle thinking of things to say whilst writing this review to make a separation between the book and the bouldering it’s all about. Although it may not always seem like it I reckon we’re incredibly lucky to have such an immense wealth and diversity of rock types and landscapes in which to climb, squashed onto one small, wet island. Surely to try and capture all of this in one guidebook would be asking too much?

With 180 venues and 3,200 problems covered in Boulder Britain I doubt that many boulderers will flick through the guide and not be inspired to visit some new venues, or discover boulders they never even knew existed (Clemmitt’s Wood in the North York Moors anyone?).  The venue choices are occasionally a bit quirky (Heysham Head and Slawston Bridge spring to mind), but they seem honestly described (Rubicon is amusingly described as 'Crap, like all Peak limestone') ,so you should get a good idea of what you’re letting yourself in for before visiting some of the more esoteric ‘gems’.

It seems to me that Boulder Britain is a book that tries to fulfil many roles, some of which it probably carries off with more success than others. For the bouldering obsessed it is clearly a book that may provide a massive amount of psyche – a tome of inspiration that can be kept on the coffee table (or more likely next to the toilet) to be dipped into to plan circuits, or imaginary road trips of the bouldering areas of Britain. To this end the book is superb; a visual tour-de-force that is jam packed with great action photos from some of the country’s top climbing photographers. The crag descriptions make for great reading regardless of whether you agree with the author’s personal opinions of the crags or not – Almscliff for instance comes in for a bit of a scathing review whilst Stanage Plantation is described as ‘World Class’ – I’m not sure I could disagree more, but I like that. Boulder Britain is a very personal guide, full of opinion and character. Whereas some guides feel stifled, as if they are the work of a writing committee, Boulder Britain is clearly one man's passion.

Enough of that though, how does Boulder Britain function as a guide book I hear you ask? Well weighing in at 850g it’s a reasonably hefty guide, but considering it contains a whole nation's worth of climbing I’d say that’s pretty impressive (especially when you consider that it’s less than half the size of Lancashire Rock which only contains one county's worth of terrible quarried rubbish). Beyond this physical concern I found myself wondering when I would be using this as a guidebook. I suspect like a lot of keen boulderers I already own bouldering guides for the Peak, Northumberland, Yorkshire, and North Wales, and free topos are available to download on sites such as www.javu.co.uk for the SW, and the amazing www.lakesbloc.com for The Lakes/North Lancs. For these areas I’d probably still take the definitive guides over Boulder Britain for the greater range of problems they offer; for obvious reasons to do with space there’s some absolutely top class problems that have been left out of Boulder Britain. For folk that haven’t invested in a full set of bouldering guides to Britain, or maybe for areas that will only be visited once, or passed through on the way to somewhere else, Boulder Britain is obviously ideal.

The topos, which are backed up with text descriptions provide just the right amount of detail for the majority of problems. However, I suspect that first timers might still struggle at some of the more eliminate limestone venues such as Woodwell or Parisella’s Cave with their specific holds and rules (I hope you didn’t  toe hook did you?), but not following the exact rules at such venues shouldn’t limit the fun too much anyhow! There is also the odd mistake with either lines or grades. Clearly trying to get the information accurate for areas far away from your home patch, even with local help, is a near impossible task and Boulder Britain doesn’t seem to fair any worse than any other guide on this front. As ever it usually pays not to get too hung up on the grade or exact line drawn on a topo in the first place. It's also unfortunate that the book makes several references to www.lakesbloc.co.uk, when the actual address is www.lakesbloc.com!

In summary Boulder Britain is a fantastic piece of work, and very cunningly devised in that it should offer up something to pretty much anybody bouldering in the UK. For the die-hard bouldering enthusiast it is clearly an essential source of psyche, whilst for the occasional boulder it offers great value for money in that it may well be the only bouldering guide book you ever need to buy! It’s a shame that Scotland is essentially missed off – but then the book would probably need to be twice the size. Fortunately the excellent Stone Country ‘Bouldering in Scotland’ guide fills this sizeable gap. Anyway, too cut a long story short; buy this guide – I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Purchase Boulder Britain: here