Chimera Climbing Canterbury

Having been displaced indefinitely to rock-poor Canterbury for professional reasons, I am grateful to have the Chimera gym here to keep my climbing from quickly sliding backwards to square one.

Different gyms present different styles of climbing. The style at Chimera features big, powerful, and daring moves, often on spaced out holds. It will make you stronger (eventually?)... or, you can climb vicariously through the impressive shirtless muscled dudes.

The gym is cleverly designed with a variety of walls -- there's a small slightly overhanging traverse wall, two massive overhangs, a freestanding boulder, a cave, a couple vert walls, a smooth wooden slab, and a top-out slab with a fireman's pole to get back down. Pretty cool! The training island has the essentials. There is also usually a spray wall (at the time of writing it's been replaced by a dyno contest for a month now but surely it'll be back soon!!), which I've been meaning to start using. Survival as a climber in Canterbury is possible 💪.

It's also friendly to beginners and kids -- try the small wall upstairs or the top-out slab, they are not too high! The staff are super friendly and happy to lend advice, and oh yeah, the coffee is good!!

What a spectacular place! This gym may be (relatively) small but it punches way above its weight. Not only is the route setting excellent, regularly changed and kept in good clean condition but there is a great sense of community, delicious coffee and passionate & highly skilled staff.

There is an ever-improving community of regular climbers who are always willing to share their knowledge and skills and now the gym offers a range of tuition options from kids clubs to private tuition so if you want to improve your climbing and/or have fun doing it this is the place to do it.

It is a gym, a community hub and a second home for many, myself included. What a gem

Nice wall with good routes and good facilities, but £14/£16 a session is a tad too much to be somewhere to go regularly, unless your loaded or get consession entry.

Great safe space to have children learn the art of climbing in an indoor area with spring floors for safety... building upper and lower body strength.
Friendly and helpful staff

Definitely one of the best experience you can have if you are looking to try something new. Facilities and difficulty levels for all kinds of climbers. The staff are lovely and very helpful in encouraging you and giving tips to improve your climbing techniques. I only wish their monthly membership cost wasn't as high if not I would have loved to sign up. But at £55 to £60 a month, it's not viable for the casual goers especially if you live in different town. However if you are looking to go once or twice a month the fair price of £16 is still nice for all day access to the rockclimbing gym.

Great climbing centre. This a bouldering only climbing centre however has good mix of slab and overhang. The routes are very well levelled and you can tell a lot of thought goes into them. I go there every time I'm in Canterbury.

It was very good and well organised staff very helpful and patient! My grandchildren of 9years a nd 13 years enjoyed it and Will go again when they come and stay . Also the place was very clean and everything they needed. Well done and thank you !!
Elaine Caraccio

I visited this centre on Sunday with some friends. The centre itself is a modest climbing gym with the space being used well. What let this place down sadly is due to one particular instructor who was running a children's birthday party whilst we were climbing. Myself and 4 others were setting problems on the spray wall and whilst I was nearing the top of the board (and one a particularly challenging move), I was horrified to hear that the instructor had led a group of children directly underneath me. If I hadn't stuck the move I would have landed on top of 2 or 3 kids and probably the instructor as well. I dread to think of the injuries that would have been caused to the children if I had landed on them. The seriousness of this needs to be addressed with the staff at the centre.

UPDATE:
The centre manager has been in touch and apologized for the incident and has assured me disciplinary action will be taken.

I'd like to add that we all had an enjoyable experience up-until this unfortunate situation and I would not hesitate to return to the centre next time I'm in the area.