Sickbed weekend to Southstone Rock

Walk down towards the treeline

A few weekends ago, after semi recovering from manflu I had 4 hrs to spare on the Sunday afternoon and just about enough energy to potter off and try and find the infamous Southstone Rock. The local venue that any West Midland climber worth his chalk, is supposed to have made a pilgrimage to at least once in his lifetime. The Sunday was a lot less sunny than Saturday; If ever I was going to witness this place then I wanted to at least give it the chance of endearing itself with some sunny weather. Sod it, this wasn’t one of those days, Sunday afternoon was grey, overcast slightly moist and getting onto early dark. It’s not on the OS map by name, only as a small rock outcrop feature buried in a forest. Most of the guides (West Mid Rock) say approach from the West i.e River. This aint so easy, after the winter and recent estate activity it’s a pretty muddy way to go. Better the top road B4204 at Sapey Common coming in from the West, you can possibly get a car in up by the phone box, and then walk down the lane. The track leads down to a cottage where some laid concrete drive ramps turn at a fence with a ROW path mark on it. Over the fence down hill through some recent forestry work, keep on the indistinct path with the stream to you right. You’ll eventually come to a small footbridge crossing the stream, go over this and head slightly uphill for 20m or so, before you come to gate you should see a rough path heading down amongst some new saplings, this eventually crosses a bubbling stream the source of which I think is the Holy Well just a few feet away.

A few metres further down the hill you get your first sight of the rock on you left, a chunky undercut of rock offers some immediate bouldering.

Right here right now, as Jesus Jones song goes, looking at the outcrop for the first time, I’m a tad underwhelmed. It’s getting dark, it’s muddy, and the undergrowth is all spiky trippy. I’ve got a sweat on as the bloody manflu is still in my system. 50/50 I’m going to sod off and come another day, and yet, there is something about this place I find strangely beguiling and defiantly not creepy. Slightly overgrown It’s a bit of a hassle to get further down the hill towards the stream, edging round a buttress a glorious grand edifice of 12 to 15m high tufa reveals itself. Its mid winter and has been raining on and off few a few days but there are still some dryish bits. This place has certainly still has possibilities. We went to Carreg-y-Byg a while ago, another local venue. Kind of sad in a way that these previously precious local outdoor spots have been neglected over the last few years, regular visits and vertical traffic used to keep the rock groomed. Like to think we do our bit by getting out during the week, but these places are now in need of some heavy duty cleaning… We’ll see

 

Not my pic but gives you some idea of scale

Below is some text extracted from the Worcester News newspaper, I think this stuff also came from a Geological pamphlet.

…………..It’s a cliff made of tufa, a strange looking grey rock formed by the precipitation of spring water containing large amounts of dissolved calcium. This causes calcium carbonate to accumulate on moss, which continues to grow, pushing through the calcium.

The new growth is then also coated and the process continues, building an ever larger rock.
Carbon dating carried out at Southstone suggests that the rock began to form about 6,700 years ago. It looks soft and spongy but in places there are smooth, hard patches – this is travertine, formed when carbon accumulates directly on existing tufa instead of on moss.
The site was apparently a medieval cell for monks from the Abbey at Evesham. No doubt the caves that form in the rock and the source of the natural spring were valuable assets to establishing a monastic presence in the locality. In Norman times the chapel of St John surmounted the rock, later to be replaced by a small cottage. The monks were noted for their eremitic garden, providing locally grown herbs for medical as well as dietary uses. Many of the formerly recorded rooms and passages in the rock unfortunately have disappeared over time.
 

http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=1066