| Author | John Laycock |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Guidebooks: Rock Climbing |
| Publisher | Refuge Printing Department, Manchester |
Publication date | 1913 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 116 pp (first edition) |
Some Gritstone Climbs is a rock climbing guidebook written by British lawyer John Laycock (1887–1960).[1] The book's subtitle, included uniquely on the frontispiece, is Some Shorter Climbs (in Derbyshire and Elsewhere). It was published in Manchester in 1913 by the Refuge Printing Department (then an insurance company). Although focusing on rock climbing in the Peak District, it covers several adjacent cliffs outside this region, and despite its title, referring to the Millstone Grit (or gritstone) geology of many of the cliffs, it includes several cliffs consisting of other rock types, including mountain limestone and red sandstone.
It is regarded as the first-ever published rock climbing guidebook for the Peak District National Park. Some Gritstone Climbs is one of the earliest guidebooks to rock climbing in the United Kingdom: Climbing in the British Isles by Walter Parry Haskett Smith was published in 1894 and the climbing guide The Climbs on Lliwedd, by J. M. A. Thompson and A. W. Andrew, in 1909.[2]