8 hours ago Oct 12, 2026HTBS

A Home For The Homeless, Part I

An image from the Middlesex bank of the River Thames just upstream of Barnes Bridge, half-a-mile from the Boat Race finish. On the left is Chiswick Boathouse which was home to Thames Tradesmen’s RC and others and stood from 1973 until its demolition in 2022. The inserted picture on the right shows where Tom Green’s Boathouse stood from 1876 until it burned down in 1978. Brentford Boat Club currently occupies the site of the former Chiswick Boathouse.

12 October 2026

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch is happy that history is repeating itself.

A short time ago, I was pleased to discover that a Thames side site that I thought had recently been lost to rowing was back in use by the sport – albeit in a basic and precarious way. The news also provided a wonderful historical symmetry in that it meant that the site was continuing to do what it has done since at least 1876 – providing a home for homeless rowing clubs.  

Brentford Boat Club (BBC) 

Brentford Boat Club is a newly-formed, junior-only community focused rowing club which specialises in bringing young people into rowing and giving them the opportunity to row both competitively and recreationally. The club believes that “Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t.” Over 90% of its members are state-school educated from the London Boroughs of Hounslow, Ealing and Richmond.

At the end of 2025, what is now Brentford Boat Club lost its original nearby Brentford base and most of its boats in a legal dispute. In February 2026, the BBC was given a twelve month lease on the demolished Chiswick Boathouse site so now Portakabins, shipping containers, and scaffolding racks provide a no-frills base for the club.
Mucking in. It took the club’s coaches, rowers and parents two weekends to clear the brambles that covered the slipway that had not been used for five years. Picture: Chiswick Calendar.
In re-establishing itself the BBC has received much practical support from the rowing community and donations can be made here.

Thames Tradesmen’s Rowing Club (TTRC)

TTRC viewed from the Surrey bank in November 2018. Barnes Bridge is on the right.

Like many impecunious tradesmen’s rowing clubs, Thames Tradesmen’s RC has led an itinerant life since it was formed in 1897, but it is one of the few such clubs that still survives in London.

A list of some of TTRC’s homes over the years. The possessive in Tradesmen/Tradesmen’s seems to be used randomly. Image from Thames Tradesmen’s Rowing Club 100 Years 1897 to 1997 via Malcolm Cook.

Currently, Tradesmen’s rows out of the University of London but it spent most of the years 1986 to 2021 at the Chiswick Boathouse. The local council, Hounslow, unceremoniously evicted TTRC in August 2018 but then allowed them back in April 2020. The club left the boathouse again at the end of 2021 so the council could demolish the functional if brutalist and shabby concrete boathouse and construct a new water sports centre to allow a range of aquatic activities, including the return of Thames Tradesmen’s.

The boathouse demolition went ahead but in March 2024 the website ChiswickW4 reported that Hounslow had scrapped the water sports centre plan “due to a lack of available funding” but that it will “be spending £50,000 on a feasibility study on the site saying it remains a priority to restore sporting activities at a new building.”

In 2018, I captured the following images of TTRC and the Chiswick Boathouse.

History in the entrance.
The view from Barnes Bridge.
Boating at the site is from a stretch of natural foreshore composed of sand, shingle, mud and centuries of historical debris.
London Oratory School goes afloat.
Boating from a beach can be much easier than going off a pontoon.
The rear of the boathouse viewed from Dan Mason Drive.

Tomorrow, Part II will look at the most famous structure to occupy the site in the shadow of Barnes Bridge, Tom Green’s Boathouse.

One comment

  1. What a wonderful history. It is so helpful to those of in the New World to learn the history of this ancient club. The taste for walking in boats through mud is amazing!

    Ed Woodhouse

    Reply

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