The Dumby Project
WATCH THE TRAILER AND SUPPORT THE FILM
What is this?
For the last year, I’ve been making a documentary about Dumbarton Rock.
Not just about the grades. Not just about the hardest routes.
But about the people who keep turning up.
Dumby is a 300-million-year-old volcanic plug on the banks of the Clyde. It’s been a fortress, a royal stronghold, a tourist attraction. And for the last fifty years, it’s been one of the most iconic climbing venues in the UK.
It’s gritty. It’s beautiful. It smells questionable at times.
And somehow, it gets its claws into people.
This film explores the modern story of the crag; the original activists who put up the classics, the guidebook writers, the new generation discovering it, the women redefining what’s possible there, and the locals who treat it like a second home.
Why make this film?
Because Dumby isn’t just a climbing crag.
It’s a place that shapes people.
You see climbers come back week after week to the same route. Fired up one day. Defeated the next. Still showing up. Still trying. Still adapting.
You don’t brute force Dumby. You work with it.
That relationship, between person and place, is what this film is really about.
It’s about community.
It’s about Scottish identity.
It’s about responsibility, including the ongoing efforts to clean and care for the Rock.
And it’s about why this unlikely lump of volcanic rock has had routes that were once the hardest in the world.
It deserves a modern, high-production film that does it justice.
The Goal
The initial target is £5,000 (which unlocks £2,500 in match funding).
If we surpass that, we stretch toward £7,000 to strengthen distribution and festival reach.
The aim is simple:
Finish this film properly.
Give Dumby the platform it deserves.
Share this part of Scotland with a wider audience.
Be part of it
If you’ve ever climbed there, visited it, or simply believe that local stories deserve telling properly — I’d love your support.
Even sharing the project makes a difference.
Thank you.
Ewan