Climbing hydrangeas

[winetimenow]

I'm hoping for a bit of advice on managing a neglected climbing hydrangea please!

For many excuses (kids/work/illness/etc) my thriving climbing hydrangea has been neglected for about 8 years. In this time it's kept growing and flowering on new growth each year but this has left a really barren/empty and increasing in size area around the main trunk. Probably about 2m wide now (the barren bit).
If I prune it really far back at the end of this years flowering season will that encourage it to develop some new growth in the empty part next year? Or is that but now lost to brown twiggy barrenness and my best hope is to grow another climber up it?!!
Thanks for another suggestions as well of course.

They flower on last year's growth, iirc, so to some degree there will always be some bare stems.

If you cut back hard in one go, it may not recover.
Rather than do a really hard prune after this summer's flowers, your best bet is to stagger the pruning over the next three years or so. Cut back roughly 1/4 to 1/3 and leave the rest. As that regrows, next summer cut back another section of the old growth. Be nice to it after such a prune - mulch well in spring for example - and you should be a nicely revitalised hydrangea. They are pretty resilient things if given a fighting chance.

(edited for many typos)

Thank you!