Grade : HVS 4c
Length : 21m
Location : Lawrencefield Quarry, Peak District
Rock : Gritstone
Aspect : West
First Climbed : Harry Hartley and Reg Pillinger September 1953 

Approach : A path runs down to the edge from Surprise View, on the A625 between Hathersage and Fox House. This view point is marked on the OS map. There is a large carpark near by, and often there is an ice cream van in situ.

Head south across the road, and there is a path. Turn right and follow it through the fields, and over a stile. The ground now gets steep, the best way to go is left along a track, which descends and goes round left into the quarry.

Great Harry is the main corner and crack on the left. The start is on a platform above the pond, by a square block. Very obvious.

Description
Climb the crack using a combination of laybacking and bridging to get to the pedestal. Some find it hard due to the steepness.

There are many options for gear here, so a possible belay if you want to split the climb.

Move up the cracks just left of the corner to the next ledge (crux). If you have belayed on the pedestal, a fall from here can get painful.

Follow the corner crack to an overlap, then right and to a loose top. I think a better finish, although not as hard, is to go left on the last ledge and up a couple of cracks. The top is slightly less loose.    

Account
Trips to the Peak are few and far between, and when they do happen it is always a rushed, disorganized affair. It happened be September the first time I climbed this route, and as usual it was a weekend trip. Things went wrong from the moment we arrived. The tent that I had borrowed did not have the correct poles, and was thus only 2 foot tall. So we scrounged a tent and went to Froggatt for the rest of the Sunday.

After a cold uncomfortable night we awoke to find everything was damp, and it was still drizzling. So we got in the car, and drove off, only to find that we now had a flat tyre, and no jack in the car. Again we scrounged, this time a car jack, and changed the wheel. We had heard that Lawerencefield was sheltered and that it was the most likely place to be dry. So we set off.

Arriving at the car park we did not know where exactly the quarry was. We walked over the road and left towards some boulders. Reaching the boulders we realised that there was no quarry there. Just at the point of randomly picking a direction we saw a group walking the other way along the road. All the children were wearing harnesses, which gave their intentions away some what. They turned out not to be going into the quarry, but we caught site of it and found it anyway.

Great Harry was the only really obvious line, and it looked to be the driest. Everything to the right had streams running down. I lead off and found the bottom to be deceptively slimy. Not being a fan of jamming I stuck to bridging between little edges. I belayed on the pedestal because I wanted Al to have a lead.

This being the second day that Al had ever been lead climbing, it was a little harsh. After very nearly falling on me we switched and I lead up to the next ledge. By now the water was beginning to trickle down the route, making the last couple of moves very difficult. Al was belayed to large hex on the pedestal, and when it came time to take it out, it was not going anywhere. After ten minutes of pulling, bashing and swearing it finally came out. This was much to the amusement of another set of climbers about to climb the same route.

I belayed on the ledge below the top, again to give Al a chance to lead. Also because the normal top part was now totally awash. Again Al had no problem seconding, but was unable to finish off the route. This, although it was the easier finish, felt the hardest part of the climb. There was water running everywhere. Anyway we topped out and went to the Foundry.

Leading it in two pitches is best, one pitch generates two much boredom, while three is simply a waste of time.