Exploring a new Climbing Centre- The Arch (Building One)
I’d like to make this a little series. Reviewing the new climbing centres I visit. Now I am by no means the best or the strongest climber however one of my favourite parts of climbing is exploring new centres, seeing how they set and find some exciting new problems to try. Sooooo again i’m sharing that with you guys. Hopefully it’ll inspire some of you to go try out these cool centre too. So without further ado.. here’s my lil review of going to the Arch climbing wall for the first time :)
I have heard so many people raving about the Arch climbing centre before so I definitely had high expectations of the centre! It surpassed my expectations by a mile! Originally I was a lil disappointed as when I went in I was only seeing the cafe wall and the big slab and thought it was tiny. Oh my god I was in awe when I the centre just kept going on and on! The main room with the island and the cave is huge… every time I though i’d seen the entire place, I found another wall! I loved the size of this centre as it meant there was so much variety within all the problems. There is certainly a climb for everyone at this centre.
The arch holds a special place in my heart for one special reason… the amount of slab!!! The arch is literally slab heaven! If you love slab then this is the centre for you as there is a large amount of slab wall with so many different problems to choose from. My favourite style of climbing is crimpy slab which is why I loved having so many slab problems to try.
I have to admit that in two hour session at the arch, I spent most of my time trying out slab problems so I cannot comment too much on the other styles of climbs. However, do not let that put you off if you are not a big fan of slab as they had a lot of none-slab walls too. Some included a cave, a progressive overhang wall, a circuit board and a traversing wall. So there is something for every style of climbing!
Not only is there a lot of variety in wall but there is also a reasonably big area with other training equipment as well! I think this is great as it means you can train off the wall and on the wall on the same membership! If I lived close enough to the centre to have a membership this would be a massive bonus! Not only this, it is important to mention that within a membership to this centre you also have access to another two centres as well. The arch Building one has two sister centres; The arch North and the Arch action meaning you can get a lot of variety under one climbing membership if you live in London.
While we are on the subject of membership we should probably talk about price because for a London climbing centre I think the price is very reasonable! Initially, unlike a lot of centres, there is no registration fee which I think is brilliant! The membership is £70 a month which is slightly pricier than what I am used to however the fact that it is in central London and you have access to three centres makes it more than reasonable. If you buy in blocks of 3 or 6 months this lowers the cost as well! Another great perk is they have great concession prices reducing the cost of all entry whether this be monthly subscriptions or day entries. If you are a student they have a great deal on at the moment- every Monday and Friday you get all day entry for £5- luckily I am still a student so this was a fun surprise when I turned up and it was only cost £5 :)
Other things about the centre that are great for convenience include:
They operate on Top logger so you can tick off all your climbs, see who set the climbs and what grade the climbs are.
They give you a barcode tag when you first enter to you can check in by scanning the barcode. This is great to make the check-in process so much quicker.
They have loads of changing rooms and lockers which is of great convenience if you are coming from work or have luggage you need to store while you are climbing. (Just make sure you bring a padlock to lock the lockers!)
There is loads of seating upstairs. I saw some guys up there doing work which I though was cute- so is a great hang out space even without climbing.
There are a lot of charging ports in the seating area. I though this was a great touch as I am a clutz that always will leave the house without charging their phone so it gave me an opportunity to charge my phone and catch a couple of my climbs on video 😁
The list could go on and on about how great this centre is but I will leave it there for now otherwise this blog post will go on for hours! The only thing that wasn’t my favourite about this gym was that the cafe didn’t serve any proper food. I had actually forgotten to eat before I came to the centre and hoped I would have been able to grab something while I was there however there was pretty limited choice and no substantial food. Not a massive issue, I would just recommend packing your own food before you come. Also the only other odd thing was that there was no music- ngl I love to workout to music so this was a little strange to me but just means I’ll remember to bring headphones next time!
So there you have it. My extremely gushing review of the Arch climbing wall. I loved it so much I am actually going back up with some friends again tomorrow. Let me know if you liked this blog post and if you give this centre a try. Hopefully I will see you there!
