21 February 2024

By Chris Dodd

A new book celebrates London RC’s pioneering headquarters on Putney Reach, writes Chris Dodd.

London Rowing Club introduced amateurs to the pleasures of rowing in Putney in 1856. Until then Westminster had seen most of the action, but “the big stink” of raw sewage, steamboats, heavy traffic and the construction of embankments that narrowed the Tideway combined to discourage amateur rowing in London.

However, by the 1850s trains enabled City workers to travel to Putney swiftly after work and go afloat where water was calmer and air sweeter. When The London RC (name included the definite article at that time) opened with over 100 members paying low annual fees and immune from the liability of holding shares in rented boats, others soon followed. Leander rented premises in the high street, and a few years later a club named Thames RC appeared.

On Finches Field – The Home of London Rowing Club since 1871 contains marvellous illustrations and maps to accompany chapters by architects and experts on the birth of what its editor Julian Ebsworth believes is the oldest bricks-and-mortar edifice designed to house boats, changing facilities, social events and rooms for members.

The book also gave London an opportunity to reveal more of its history. I wrote the story of the club’s first 150 years in 2006 that opened with its context and formation. The main instigators were a group of rowing fanatics who called themselves the Argonauts, rowing out of a pub-boatshed in Wandsworth, the Feathers. Since then the historian and HTBS contributor Tim Koch has dug out a wedge of rowing history centred on the Feathers – the small clubs who boated there (notably the Wandle Club), its connection with the professional oarsmen of the River Tyne and its links with the Salter family later of Folly Bridge, Oxford.

As a consequence, I have been able to shorten and update my original account of LRC’s birth. London’s building is in great shape and can claim a place in any of the world’s “Boathouse Rows.”

On Finches Field is available by post from London RC, Embankment, Putney, London SW15 1LB for £10.00 per copy plus £5 p&p. Address your order to Julian Ebsworth who will send you the club’s bank details and dispatch the book once your money reaches the account.