UKC

Came across an excellent online article on the history of the Rucksack Club which included this pic of Fred Pigott (and Morley Wood?) at the Roaches. I think this is the start of Saul's Crack? Photo 1920's ish? Pretty bold attempt  for the date. Anyone got any more info?

Definitely the start of Saul's Crack - one of the logbook photos

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/roaches_upper_tier-797/sauls_crack...

shows identical rock features at the point about 5' below Fred Pigott

Wonder how far he got, protection would have been a bit lacking back then.

Yes, I wondered that too. Pigott's on Cloggy is 5a so he would have been capable of doing it, but surely it would have been recorded if he had. 

Perhaps he ended up traversing left and making the FA of Bachelor's Buttress (HVS 4c)? 

Good shout, that would fit, as he led that in 1922, and had suffered a bad hand injury in WW1 (he was a sniper) so maybe the crack would have seemed less attractive than slab to its left? If so then it's the occasion the article describes when the landowner (Sir Philip Brocklehurst) turned up demanding to know what they were doing on his land and was told to shut up while Pigott was doing the difficult move.

The problem was there were a number of different clubs going to these (then) not easily accessible crags, and identical routes got given different names. One reason why unravelling the first ascent of Kelly’s Overhang, for example, is so difficult, because one of the clubs called it the ‘Inaccessible Overhang’ or some such, IIRC.

Pigott was a very capable climber, who definitely led Kelly’s Overhang - perhaps even the first genuine ascent. I was fortunate to be able to get in touch with, and meet, his son Geoff Pigott - who was also a very good climber - when I did my Peak book. He told me lots of amusing stories about his father, who was famously unflappable.

So do you think he led it? My guess is not, as the routes he did record at the Roaches seem to coincide with the modern names. Be a nice quirky turn up for the books if he had though🙂. I do quite like Mark's suggestion that the pic is actually the first ascent of Bachelor's Buttress.

My memory this has become muddled. I did research into it about 30 years ago, and rough notes i made at the time refer to pictures in the plural of Pigott doing Kelly’s Overhang on a top rope (I can’t find those pictures now). I think it’s one of those things that is impossible to unravel unless more evidence comes to light. It’s very tempting to think that, having done it on a top rope, he led it. 

I’ve just found the picture in a very ancient gritstone guide of Morley Wood making the first ascent of Kelly’s Overhang in 1926. Am scanning now, and will post shortly.

Here’s the shot of Morley Wood making the first ascent of Kelly’s Overhang in 1926. Very interesting use of a double rope. Right-hand rope flicked over the block to act as primitive runner to get on to the block, then presumably the left rope was draped over the block behind him to protect him on the crux moves up rightwards on to the slab above the OH?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ol41lnrlojdekwhujujih/MorleyWood1stAscKellys...

I think doing it like that, with that primitive protection technique (which could go horribly wrong above the block), would be correctly graded about E3 5c now, wouldn’t it?

Actually it was whether Pigott led Saul's Crack that I meant, as the pic above shows he set off up it.

There's an excellent pic of Morley Wood leading Kelly's Overhang in Peak Rock,which I'm guessing is the pic you're referring to? The authors are sceptical and comment that there are no photos of him above the overhang, though IIRC Giles Barker wrote something implying that he had succeeded. Obviously it's a fair bit harder than Saul's Crack.

That's a slightly different pic to the Peak Rock one (though probably taken only a few seconds later), so your note is correct, it's pictures plural.

Sorry, yes I got side-tracked from the Saul’s Crack question. Don’t know the answer to that. Pigott and Morley Wood were a very strong team for the 1920s, (almost Joe Brown standard … ) Of course, Kelly’s Overhang is substantially harder than Saul’s Crack, but maybe their hand-jamming wasn’t so good, so were defeated by Saul’s? The picture I’ve scanned  above of Wood on Kelly’s O in 1926 is from 'Rock Climbs in the Peak: Sheffiled-Stanage Area', ed. Eric Byne, 1964.

Yes, different climber (different hat) a bit later in the day - shadows have moved a bit. Same photographer.

I’m fairly sure there were at least five or six photos of MW on Kelly’s (no relation) overhang. I tried for two years to find the originals, including 3 days in Preston archives and a day in the vast attic of a stately home, but with no luck.

One photo definitely showed it being top roped, I’m sure but can’t even find any copies these days.

My remembrance is that the top rope photo was the last of the sequence, but that could have been how they’d been laid out ‘wherever they were’

I’m not seeing double ropes…

On the Kelly’s Overhang shot there are definitely two.

In this photo?

I see the one parallel to my red line, where is the other…

Running back into Twisting Crack behind him.

In the Peak Rock shot you can also see the hand of a second belayer stationed in there (proving yet again there are no new tactics under the sun!)

Still can't see it. Is it the thing I've marked in blue? That looks like sunlight to me...

Yep that's it, a bit blurry presumably due to movement and a slowish exposure given when the photo was taken. It's sharper in the one in Peak Rock.

Cheers.

Piggott and Wood were undoubtedly a very strong partnership for their time, but nowhere near as good as J.B. Don’t compare Saul’s to Kelly’s, but Quietus and look at J.B,s first ascent list. Peerless!