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© Core Climbing 2022
© Core Climbing 2022
After an early start setting off from Sheffield at 4.30 am, I crossed the Dartford Bridge at 7 am. I felt relieved to escape the hustle and bustle of the M25. Grey concrete and three lanes of traffic gave way to green spaces and wooded areas indicating the final stretch on my route down to Chimera Climbing. The Chimera group’s latest wall, located in Chatham, Kent, the Garden of England. My route took the A2 and then the A289 skirting Wainscot with Chimera a quick left, left, right after emerging from the Medway tunnel. Unusually Chimera is located right on the end of a quay surrounded on three sides by water with the majority of the centre located on the first floor. On arrival, Marisa (Chimera’s project manager) gave me a quick tour of the facilities. I was absolutely blown away by the space that they have. Light streams in from the huge floor to ceiling windows, playing with the angles and shapes of the boulders and the surfaces of the café area. It’s an exciting space with an energy of its own, a heady mix of dancing light and sound.
Location Location Location
Outdoor Boulder
My job for the day wasn’t to admire the architecture but to get a full artic load of crash matting off a lorry and up into the building where it was needed. Time for a quick coffee and a few minutes later the lorry rolled in.
A location like this does present certain challenges and I was expecting a difficult offload (the first of three). A fair amount of moving of vans, stopping traffic, driving skill and waving of arms was required to get the artic lorry reversed up the quayside to the front doors. The majority of matting was needed upstairs on the first and second floors. Accessed via a corridor, a lift and a couple of corners and for the second floor another staircase. Exhausting work!
If you are thinking that it’s only foam, how heavy can it be? Please think again. Our mats are built to last and the laminated foam system we use is the heaviest on the market, each unit weighs about 80 kg. The reason we use such heavy foam is because we know that the density of the foam directly correlates to longevity. Fortunately for us, the slightly temperamental goods lift broke down only once during our three offloads.
The facilities are first-rate, with the familiar Chimera chilled-out / fun vibes that their customers, at Canterbury and Tumbridge, love so much. They have put in a slackline, a large café / bar and even disco lights. They do love a party! Chimera has created a large social space with half a garden centre and comfy sofas.
The wall build is superb! Another fantastic job, built by Ben West’s “Climbing Wall Collective”. Loads of angles, slabs, a barrel wall, prow and a top-out boulder. The colour scheme of greys, creams and natural birch ply finish is excellent, complementing the bright light and open feel. Downstairs there is a circuit board and on the balcony, they have created an outdoor boulder. The training facilities include free weights and gym equipment, campus boards (still a thing), Beastmaker fingerboards and a fixed angle 12 x 12 Kilter Board.
Andre and Chris (Chimera’s founders and owners) have found an absolute gem of a location. The views from the windows and the Outdoor boulder are outstanding. The wall overlooks Chatham Maritime Marina with sights across the Medway to Upnor Castle. Almost certainly the best views of any climbing wall in the Country. The neighbouring properties mainly service the leisure industry too with gyms, restaurants, bars, coffee shops and even a tanning studio. Judging by the length of the queue outside of Wagamama’s on Friday evening, a decent footfall. It seems there are plenty of people in the area still spending money.
Kilter Board and free weights
Top Out Boulder
Social Space
Slackline
Chimera Cafe
Circuit board
We have done a lot of work for Chimera over the last decade and this year has been an especially busy one. We installed Chimera’s matting at their first site in Tunbridge Wells over 8 years ago. Chimera Tunbridge has been going through a matting replacement program recently. This Chatham project has come right off the back of the second phase of that program.
Every crash matting job we undertake comes with our commitment to look after the mat for the life of the centre. A bespoke job, like the mat at Chatham, has hundreds of parts in it. The majority of these modules, connections and carpet pieces are unique shapes. All this information is available to the customer enabling duty managers to conduct regular matting checks. With every part available in our CNC library we are able to efficiently deal with wear and tear issues. We can quickly turn around replacement components.
The attention to detail at the Chimera venues is really impressive and it is nice to be able to play our part with the bespoke elements they wanted. We made corner and pillar covers, infills to the floor-to-ceiling glass, a bespoke slackline mat based on our rope wall matting system and even a made-to-measure corner sofa. It’s really nice to be able to offer a full service of bespoke sewn products. It’s quite typical that late on during a build phase customers will realise they want some additional items they hadn’t planned for.
Chimera bought loads of climbing holds from us including downclimb jugs in grey with green arrows. For their black and red circuits Andre went for a selection from our Geo range including our classic geo pinches, super pinches and screw-on hands. As well as some of our more recent additions to the Geo range, the slates. The slates include some of my favourite holds “slate mini volumes” which are great for setting in combination with volumes and perfect for creating hard slabs or more dynamic jumpy routes.
Core DownClimb Jugs in two colours
Geo Slates for harder comp style setting
Core Jugs for and easy circuit
Core bespoke Corner sofa
Chimera Sunset
Huge thank you to Andre, Chris, Danny, Marisa and the team for choosing to work with us on this awesome project. Wishing you the all the best with your continued success.