Night Climbers to the Four

This week saw a fair amount of activity by Cambridge's favourite secret club. Santa hats have been appearing on various parts of the University's architecture - most notably on all four pinnacles of King's College Chapel as pictured (pic thanks to avaragado, click through for more and follow him on Twitter.) The Santa hat deluge is a pretty regular occurrence at this time of year; followers of this column will know that the Night Climbers have been a part of Cambridge subculture for over a hundred years definitely, and probably a lot longer (on Gunning's Balcony, St John's College, there's an inscription carved by pen-knife: PETRUS GUNNING ELIENSIS, HUJUS COLL : ALUMNUS Feb: 19th, 1734).

Those interested can read a free pdf on the history of Night Climbing below (and on the Oleander website.)

The History of Night Climbing in Cambridge

Anyone wanting to know the history of this exclusive sport in Cambridge and how and when all the various different books and editions of the night climbing titles came to be is highly recommended to read Richard Williams' piece:


Richard was the author of the 3rd edition of The Night-Climber's Guide to Trinity in 1960 - the title responsible for the resurgence of enthusiasm the sport experienced in that decade. He recently gave a talk on the subject to the Cambridge Society in Melbourne, where he has lived for many years, and this is the transcript of that presentation. His edition of the Guide is being re-published by Oleander in the new year.

The Holy Grail is here!

The original night-climbing text is now in stock. The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity, written in 1900 by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and the inspiration for Whipplesnaith's Night Climbers of Cambridge is here, available once more. We're very excited to see it - eventually - back in print!!

Check out a review written on publication in 1900 over here.

Read more about it below and get your own copy here.