> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Scaling the Spires of Cambridge with 1930s Urban Explorers - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/scaling-the-spires-of-cambridge-with-1930s-urban-explorers/ - Published: 2014-07-25T01:06:44.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T16:16:47.000Z - Description: Back in the 1930s, a group of amateur climbers scaled the centuries-old Gothic stonework and shaky water pipes to reach the spires of the Cambridge colleges. - Author: Allison Meier - Tags: Art, cambridge, Photography, United Kingdom, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1) ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers7.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge (all images courtesy Archive Press) Back in the 1930s, a group of amateur climbers scaled the centuries-old Gothic stonework and shaky water pipes to reach the spires of the Cambridge colleges. While not the first curious explorers to look at the architecture of a building and see it as a ladder to a new vista, they were some of the first to document their exploits. French artist [Thomas Mailaender](http://www.thomasmailaender.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) has compiled these black and white photographs acquired from the Cambridge climbers’ archives into a [new publication](http://www.amcbooks.com/night-climbers-of-cambridge?ref=hyperallergic.com) with British independent publisher the Archive of Modern Conflict. Released this month and bound in black velvet, [*The Night Climbers of Cambridge*](http://www.amcbooks.com/night-climbers-of-cambridge?ref=hyperallergic.com) follows an exhibition from Mailaender, who often plays with found imagery, last fall [at Roman Road Project Space in London](http://www.romanroad.com/thomas-mailaender/?ref=hyperallergic.com), where the photographs were positioned on actual climbing walls installed in the gallery. Back in 1937, Night Climbers leader Noël Edward Symington published his own *The Night Climbers of Cambridge* (reissued in 2007 [by Oleander Press](http://www.oleanderpress.com/the-night-climbers-of-cambridge-by-whipplesnaith.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)) under the pseudonym Whipplesnaith, referencing the Middle English verb “whipple” meaning to dart quickly about. England at the time was in a depression, unease was growing with the Spanish Civil War, and young men, sometimes in suit and tie, took out some of their unrest through trespassing. Before urban exploring had a name and a subculture, but adventurers like Geoffrey Winthrop Young with his 1899 [*Roof-Climber’s Guide to Trinity*](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0900891920/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) had laid the way, they were wedging between stone walls and weaving over precipices to get to forbidden places, hauling cameras to the precarious heights. As art historian Ian Jeffrey [writes in an essay](http://www.amcbooks.com/night-climbers-of-cambridge?ref=hyperallergic.com) for Mailaender’s project: > These were, after all, formative years in photo-journalism. The climbers carried cameras and used lighting, which, of course, alerted the police, who sometimes feature as interested onlookers. The result is a staged photography, at a time when staged events were commonplace in both the German and the British press — reportage being a collaborative venture in which friends and passers-by acted parts. Below are some of the photographs from *The Night Climbers*, where by handheld flashbulb, some intrepid explorers found a freedom in their city’s unruled spaces. *h/t* [*Ida C. Benedetto*](https://twitter.com/idamantium/status/491809454921220096?ref=hyperallergic.com) ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers3.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers9.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers1.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers2.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers4.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers5.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers6.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers8.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge ![Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/07/nightclimbers10.jpg) Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge [Thomas Mailaender: The Night Climbers of Cambridge](http://www.amcbooks.com/night-climbers-of-cambridge?ref=hyperallergic.com) *is available from the Archive of Modern Conflict.*