The Cellars Bouldering Wall at Fort Purbrook

My local climbing wall! The Portsmouth area is woefully under-​served as far as climbing facilities go, but this funny little place is all you need! ‘The Cellars’ is the name of the walls themselves, which are deep underground (seriously!) in the bowels of a dank old Napoleonic fort. It’s split into two rooms, each of which used to be a gunpowder store; one is the usual plywood/​resin bolt on holds, and houses some great routes set by just a couple of dedicated staff members, and the other is Bendcrete ‘fake rock’, built in 1992, which has some seriously hard test pieces (up to Font 7C, maybe more…) cooked up by the regular climbers and stored in a topo book! It’s only 700sqft, and it can smell a bit funny, but it’s just £5 a go, and has an awesome, friendly little community, so if you live in the Portsmouth area, or are a visiting climber, be sure to try it out!