28 February 2025

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch on some sad if not entirely unexpected news.

On Thursday, the River & Rowing Museum’s board of trustees announced that the museum will “cease the current operation in a considered and managed way” as it was “not viable in the long-term”.

The Museums Journal reported:

The institution has made a loss for some time, said the board, primarily due to the high costs of maintaining and preserving its purpose-built home on the riverbank in Henley-on-Thames.

The museum had put in place a “risky and expensive to execute” strategy to break even. However, the board decided this week that moving ahead with this plan was “a risk too far” given the impending departure of the museum’s director, Steve O’Connor…

Museums Journal understands that the museum has no immediate plans to close, but that “closure is undoubtedly an option” if nothing changes in how it operates…

The museum still has half of its reserves remaining. Museums Journal understands that it has chosen to go public about the situation “in order to see who can help, what options are open to us that we haven’t thought of and what partners may be brought in to assist….”

[The RRM Foundation’s chair of trustees, David Worthington said] This is a very sad day. A remarkable project was dreamt up in the mid-nineties and launched to international and national acclaim. However, it was always too costly for its location and subject matter and despite the efforts of the museum’s trustees and workforce from 1998 to the present day, finding a sustainable solution has proved elusive.

The unavoidable reality is that the building is simply too large and the galleries too ambitious in scale. To secure the future of the foundation we will consider all options, from all quarters, and given that we have taken this step now, not when it’s too late, we have the potential to see our valuable assets re-emerge on a scale that is affordable and sustainable.

The RRM’s board has issued the following statement:

Ever since opening its doors in 1998, the museum has attempted to balance its revenue generating capability with the expenditure necessary to maintain a substantial landmark building and a collection of 30,000 objects spread across five galleries and storage facilities.

Recently, good progress has been made on increasing visitor numbers and a stable income stream has been established from leasing office spaces to local businesses.

However, the stark reality is that even these improvements don’t match expenditure and despite recent investment in the building and the commercial model, sustainability remains out of reach.

Sustainability remains reliant on a level of visitors and commercial income well in excess of anything managed since opening…

Therefore, the responsible course of action for the foundation is to now cease the current operation in a considered and managed way, which preserves the public benefits in the assets we hold – namely our building, collection and charitable funds.

Accordingly, the trustees have made the difficult decision to explore new options, whilst the foundation still has the financial capability to make considered choices.