The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 3

Westminster School Boat Club. Seen in this photograph is OUBC coach Sean Bowden.

Here continues Tim Koch’s third and final part of his story about The Putney Embankment – London’s Boathouse Row.

Vesta RC had been formed in 1871 and was initially based at the Feathers Boathouse on the River Wandle in south London. By 1875 it had moved to the Unity Boat House on the Putney Embankment (run by the famous rowing and boatbuilding Phelps family for many years). The Unity is now Ranelagh Sailing Club, situated between Westminster School BC and the building that Vesta erected as its boathouse in 1890 and which still serves it today.

Westminster School BC

The only Victorian boathouse not yet mentioned that still stands on the Embankment started life slightly differently. What is now Westminster School Boat Club was erected by the boat builder, J.H. Clasper, I think in the 1880s. John Hawks Clasper (1835-1908) was the son of the famous and innovative Newcastle boat builder, oarsman and coach, Harry Clasper (1812-1870). John moved south in the late 1860s and by the 1870s was building boats in Wandsworth (just upriver from Putney) and in Oxford. Many of the boats used in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race in this period were made by him. The first reference that I have of him as ‘Clasper of Putney’ is 1882 when he ‘steered’ Payne in the Wingfield Sculls from a following boat. Between 1887 and 1897, ‘Clasper of Putney’ again built many of the craft used in the University Boat Race. The original building has been thoughtfully and ‘lightly’ adapted for modern use by WSBC and the name ‘JH Clasper’ is still nicely picked out in red brick on the gable end (see above and on top).

Imperial College BC

The next surviving boathouse at Putney dates from much later. It is the very pleasing building put up for Imperial College (London) BC in 1937. The PECA Report again:

‘Its sleek moderne lines make for an attractive contrast to the dominant Victoriana, varying the styles of the group of boathouses but keeping to their overall character. It is a highly individual and positive building, featuring a wave motif on the rendered panel beneath its cluster of Crittall windows. It is also one of the only quintessentially 1930s buildings in this part of Putney. A contemporary extension to the boat house […] was added in 1997.’

The modern extension is not unattractive and it allows the original and better part of the boathouse to dominate. Sadly, a small terrace of Victorian houses had to be demolished to make way for it.

The remaining architectural ‘style’ on the Embankment is, unfortunately, that of the post 1939-1945 War period. The PECA is generous:

‘[…] relatively recent additions reflect the architecture style of the 50s and 60s and should be regarded as positive in terms of their function and group value even though their overall design lacks the finesse of their neighbours.’

While accepting that a rowing club must be a functional place and not (in the words of the late Peter Coni) ‘a sporting slum’, I find it hard to be positive about the architecture of Kings College School (built for Barclays Bank RC), HSBC (since 1992 the name for the Midland Bank, the full name of the ‘Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’ is never used) and Dulwich College (built for the NatWest Bank RC). The only building with some character in this group is that of Crabtree BC (built for Lensbury RC, a club for Shell Oil and British Petroleum employees). I find it difficult to date but its nice external spiral staircase suggests that it may be older than its three neighbours to the west.

The architecturally not so attractive Kings College Boathouse.

In its conclusions, the Putney Embankment Conservation Area Report says:

‘Many of the boathouses on the Embankment are fine or indeed excellent buildings, but it is their use that gives them their group character.’

That ‘use’ is rowing. Long may it continue!

The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 1.
The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 2.

The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 2

The London RC

Here continues Tim Koch’s article on the London’s 'Boathouse Row'.

In his history of the London Rowing Club, Water Boiling Aft (2006), Chris Dodd says:

‘It is not recorded whether there was much debate about the location of the club [...] the speed of setting up suggests that Putney was in the minds of the founders from the beginning...’

A final ‘selling point’ (were one needed) was that Putney was at one end of the ‘Championship Course’, a ‘fair’ stretch of a winding river to race on and which had been used for the Oxford - Cambridge Boat Race and professional sculling matches for many years. A map of 1871 is here. ('Dung Wharf' now houses luxury apartments and has had a name change).

The PECA Report describes the London boathouse thus:

‘[It] is of stock brick with tall chimneys and makes use of typically mid-Victorian (coloured) brickwork details to provide visual interest to the facade. The roofline has been altered to provide an additional storey and the original ornate balcony has been replaced with a much simpler structure, but overall the building is remarkably original and even retains its original iron balustrade on the roof.’

There are plans to replace the ‘simple’ modern balcony with a copy of the original ‘ornate’ one shown here and here (with Leander Club on the right). The ‘1900’ date given is incorrect, the picture was taken before the road of 1887 was put down.

In 1860, four years after London RC established themselves at Putney, they were joined by Leander Club, also escaping from the horrors of central London rowing. Initially operating out of a tent, in 1866 they built a more permanent structure to the right of LRC. The centre of its activities moved to Henley on Thames after they erected a boathouse there in 1897 but Leander retained a Putney base until 1961. Today, Kings College School BC and (I think) HSBC RC stand on the site.

Thames RC

Also in 1860, Thames RC was founded as the City of London Rowing Club. They were initially based in a room at the Red Lion Hotel, 2 Putney High Street and in, what was by then, Simmons Yard. By 1879 Thames had a new, purpose built boathouse. The PECA Report says this of it:

‘Apart from the now in filled, formerly open first floor balcony the building largely retains its original appearance. It is of two storeys with a high roof structure incorporating clerestory windows and is relatively simple in overall design. The balcony area projects over the solid brick structure of the ground floor and is supported on cast iron columns. For such a low-key structure to have survived to such an original extent is remarkable [...] The building has recently had planning permission granted for works to the front facade (among other modifications); these will alter the appearance of the former balcony but the original structure will still be discernible.’

The third and final installment will continue tomorrow!

The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 1.

The Putney Embankment – London’s ‘Boathouse Row’, Part 1

LC Putney before 1890.

In three installments, HTBS’s Tim Koch tells the story of the rowing clubs along the Putney Embankment, or what Tim calls ‘London’s Boathouse Row’.

The Putney Embankment is west of Putney Bridge on the south or ‘Surrey’ bank of the Thames. ‘The Embankment’ is the British equivalent of Philadelphia’s ‘Boathouse Row’. Listed in order from west to east, it is home to the London Rowing Club, Kings College School Boat Club, HSBC RC, Dulwich College BC, Crabtree BC, Westminster School BC, Vesta RC, Thames RC, and Imperial College BC. There are also three buildings with historic boat building connections. Originally these were Clasper’s, Searle’s and Norris’s and I will write about these at another time. An interactive 360 degree view of the Embankment can be found here.

The hamlet of Putney had boatmen operating a ferry connecting it to the north (‘Middlesex’) bank since at least 1210 when it was recorded that King John’s horses were transported across the river from Fulham. There was great consternation among the Watermen when the first bridge was opened in 1729.

At the time it was the only span crossing the Thames between London Bridge and Kingston Bridge (which were 10 miles/16 km apart). The laboriously titled ‘Putney Embankment Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy Report 2010’ (hereafter referred to as ‘The PECA Report’) gives a brief history of the area:

"The Embankment itself [...] was originally an unimproved strip of foreshore, backed by common pasture and the grounds of large houses along the Lower Richmond Road. (It) was used mostly by the local watermen to shore their boats until a towpath was created in the late eighteenth century. It has always been a location for public houses from as early as the Middle Ages and of commercial boatmen and boat builders from the seventeenth onwards [...] The Embankment was made up as a road in 1887 but boathouses were built here before this date. The most notable today are the former Searle’s Yard […], the London Rowing Club and Thames Rowing Club buildings. All have been altered in the intervening years but are all immediately recognisable today from historic photographs. All three are proposed for the local (conservation) list for their largely unaltered exteriors and importance in the area’s unique history."

1851 Funny by the Star and Garter pub.

Putney's place as the centre of British amateur rowing (outside of Oxford and Cambridge Universities) for over one hundred years started in 1856 with the formation of the London Rowing Club, LRC. Initially it was based at the Star and Garter pub on the Embankment with its boats kept at Searle’s Yard (Searle’s became, at various and sometime overlapping times, Simmons, Aylings, Boyers & Phelps and is today Chas Newens Marine).

By 1859 LRC had purchased the site of the present boathouse, Finches Field, and built a rough shed to store the boats. The current boathouse dates from 1871 and was enlarged to its present size by 1906.

It was the British ‘Industrial Revolution’ that made LRC’s founders choose this part of the river as their base. Rowing in the rapidly industrialising and increasingly polluted centre of London (5 miles/8 km to the south west) where most of the original LRC members worked was becoming less and less tolerable. The Port of London was at the heart of a growing Empire, which would soon cover a quarter of the earth. River traffic carrying people and goods created great washes and bridge and embankment building increased the river’s flow. Factories and sewers poured their waste into the Thames without restriction. However, the Industrial Revolution also provided a solution. From 1846 the new railways meant that a man could work in the centre of London but be in the remote and relatively unspoilt village of Putney in twenty minutes. An early Thames RC notice read:

The rowing train will leave Waterloo (Railway Station) at 6.34 p.m. and crews will be formed at 7.00 p.m.

1851 outrigger pair by St. Mary's Church.

Some delightful evidence that Putney was an established centre of amateur rowing by the late 1840s is given by four engravings published on 25th January 1851 ‘by Messrs. Fores at their Sporting and Finest Print Repository and Frame Manufactory, 41 Piccadilly’ showing various types of rowing boats along the Embankment. My favourites show an ‘outrigged pair’ by St Mary’s Church (seen above) and the old bridge and a ‘Funny’ (inrigged scull) by the ‘Star and Garter’.

Part 2 will continue tomorrow!