In the latter half of the 1980s Nick Moriarty, the founder of RCD, began experimenting with a variety of different ropes course construction techniques. These were an amalgamation of practices used in climbing, the wire rope and lifting industry and the American ropes course industry. The result was the creation of Burnbake Ropes Course in the south of England. This is widely recognised as being the first commercial ropes course in the United Kingdom and although now dated, remains the preferred site for all RCD Open Training Courses.
The creation of a definitive set of safety standards for both the training and construction of European Ropes Courses became an immediate goal for RCD. The fundamentals of these standards still prevail in the United Kingdom.
RCD became known as the leader in the field of ropes course construction and the training of ropes course instructors. Hundreds of ropes courses were built by RCD in the latter part of the 1990s and RCD gained national and international recognition for its work in the ropes course industry.
For RCD (and many others) 2001 was a very bad year. The Twin Towers were attacked and this sent the financial markets in to a state of chaos with planned expenditure by many clients placed on hold. The foot and mouth epidemic spread across the UK preventing our construction teams from visiting construction sites and the general down turn in the economy resulted in a number of clients going into liquidation with substantial sums of money left owing to RCD. Additionally, RCD was struggling to manage its massive growth and was unprepared for such a series of events. With so much money owing, the Directors of RCD took the reluctant decision to place the company into voluntary liquidation. The demand for RCD ropes courses remained extraordinarily high however and so Nick Moriarty with his longest serving Construction Manager Mat Shaylor, reformed RCD.
Determined to learn from past mistakes RCD has re-emerged stronger than ever and with an ever growing list of clients from around the world. RCD has an outstanding relationship with it's suppliers (many of whom have served RCD with distinction for nearly 20 years) and every customer is regarded as a partner.
