2 hours ago Oct 13, 2026HTBS

A Home For The Homeless, Part II

Tom Green’s Boathouse, pictured here in the 1920s, stood from 1876 until 1978. Part of Barnes Bridge is just visible on the right as viewed here and the future site of the Chiswick Boathouse (1973-2022) is on the left.

13 October 2026

By Tim Koch

In Part I posted yesterday, Tim Koch looked at the two most recent occupants of the riverside site upstream of Barnes Bridge on the Middlesex side i.e. the former Chiswick Boathouse (which housed Thames Tradesmen’s RC and others) and currently, Brentford Boat Club. He noted that the site was continuing to do what it has done since at least 1876 – providing a home for homeless rowing clubs.

While I have previously written about Tom Green’s Boathouse in a 2014 piece subtitled Good Times in a Rat Infested Shack, I am returning to the subject not least because what could be called the Green archive, in reality a random collection of photographs and personal ephemera, which is physically held in store by the now closed River and Rowing Museum and digitally on their still functioning website. 

However, the RRM building is now inaccessible, and I am not certain how long collection.rrm.co.uk will stay up, I want to preserve at least a small part of what the Greens left behind here. Unless otherwise indicated, all the black and white pictures here are from the RRM site. Frustratingly, few pictures are dated or identified.

A 1929 aerial view of Green’s (marked with a red arrow) and the future site of the Chiswick Boathouse, marked with a white arrow. On the right, the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race approaches Barnes Bridge. Picture: britainfromabove.org.uk
A Google Earth view from about 2021 showing Chiswick Boathouse marked with a white arrow and the site of Tom Green’s with a red arrow.

In 1872, Tom Green Senior (1848-1925) bought the ailing May’s Boathouse and spent the next four years completely rebuilding it and making it into the impressive structure that became Tom Green’s Boathouse. Young Tom, aka Pa Green (1877-1958), took over on his father’s death and on his demise his wife, Ma Green, kept the place going until she died in 1975. The derelict boathouse burned down in 1977.

The hard-working Tom Senior, properly Thomas George Green (right, pictured in old age) started a boatbuilding business while also erecting what would become the landmark Tom Green’s Boathouse. Possibly his son, properly Thomas GW Green, was not as industrious or enterprising and did little to maintain the fabric of the building. Also, in 1937 Young Tom was quoted as saying that he had not built a boat in ten years.
Top: Tom and Kate Green (widely known as Pa and Ma Green) in studio portraits probably taken around the time of their marriage in 1919. Below: Tom and Kate and a friend pictured in the 1950s (Tom died in 1958 in the room in the boathouse that he was born in).

By accident or design, throughout its life Green’s seems to have attracted those whom most of the male-dominated amateur rowing world marginalised or simply refused to engage with. In the words of a 1947 newspaper, “Green’s Boathouse provides for homeless tradesmen, artisans and women who like the river…”

In 2004, Rene Rawkins gave a wonderfully frank account of rowing out of Green’s during the 1939-1945 War:

Tom Green’s Boathouse was a rat infested wooden shack situated immediately adjacent to Barnes Bridge on the Chiswick side… There were no showers… Ma Green – Tom Green’s wife – cooked on a large bottled gas stove, there being no electricity either. Needless to say, no insurance company would touch the place…. For all that, we had some good times there…

The interior of Tom Green’s in the 1960s – still lit by oil lamps.

Rene: Young Tom Green was one of the river’s great characters; a professional boatman, he was given to binge drinking and frequently disappeared for days at a time, before being brought back much the worse for wear on the ferry that ran between Barnes and Chiswick. 

The still operating Waterman’s Arms sited across the river from Green’s Boathouse c.1910. As the sign saying “Tom Green” on the top floor indicates, the enterprising Tom Senior was part owner of the pub. The father was a canny seller of beer while the son was an enthusiastic consumer of the stuff.

Rene: Ma Green was forever purloining our sweaters and shoes while we were out on the water. Yet, if you enquired about the whereabouts of a missing item of clothing she’d swear blind that she’d never seen it, even when she was standing before you actually wearing it….

Rita Cramp (née Dennis) joined Alpha RC as a schoolgirl in the early 1950s. She recalls:

I used to take a filled hot water bottle so I could have a warm wash after our outings or evening runs. It was then used for others to wash their feet in. It was all so taken for granted, it’s amazing when one thinks of it now.

A price list from 1951. The prices on the left are in shillings, one shilling is five pence. When places like Green’s existed, a rowing club did not have to own premises or boats, and many clubs survived by hiring craft and changing rooms as needed thus making the sport easily accessible to people on low incomes.

Even in its later years, Green’s seemed to have carried on as if the world was not changing, particularly as regards health and safety and ideas on basic sanitation. A history of Thames Tradesmen’s RC notes that at some time, probably at least until the 1930s:

Toilet facilities were very primitive consisting only of a canvas enclosure “out in the woods.” Guests were confronted by a board with two apertures and the entertainment provided by the birds, bees, and other denizens of the trees.

The Boathouse

Green’s pictured probably before the 1914-18 War. The future site of Chiswick Boathouse is on the left.
The 1902 Oxford Cambridge Boat Race going through Barnes Bridge. This is one of the few pictures that show how far Green’s went back. Picture via Tony Haig Thomas.
Another view of Tom Green’s from the Barnes side of the river taken at a different angle to the picture above it. This probably dates from just before or just after the 1914-18 War.
The Internet always dates this picture as c.1937 but the fashions undoubtedly put it in the 1920s. The large coat-of-arms on the balcony probably advertise that Tom Green Senior was a King’s Waterman. It was taken down for some reason between 1927 and 1932.
This picture was taken in 1932, one of the few photographs that is confidently dated.
An image that is very difficult to date. The clothing could be from any time between the 1930s and 1950s. The only certainty is that the boathouse is in a very poor state, indicating the later rather than earlier time period.
The fashions strongly indicate the late 1940s to early 1950s. By this time it seems that the deterioration noted in the picture above has been addressed. The fancy wooden balcony railings have been replaced with simple tubular steel, the whole structure has been repainted in off white and the signage is in a more simple font.
A rare view looking upriver to the future site of the Chiswick Boathouse. The cars indicate that the period is the 1950s.
A postcard probably from the early 1960s
A Borough Surveyor’s list of work needed at Green’s “as a matter of urgency” in 1975, the year of Ma Green’s death.

As I have previously lamented, few of the pictures in the Green archive are marked or dated. However, identified or not, most of these images show the pleasure that Green’s gave thousands of rowers over ninety-nine years, notably “homeless tradesmen, artisans and women who like the river…”

Crews at Green’s before the 1914-18 War

Tom Green Senior is pictured back right.
Young Tom is on the right, the famous sculler and boatbuilder John Hawks Clasper is on the left. The caps belonging to the four men in the middle suggest that they are German.
Young Tom in a bowler hat on the left.
Part of a crew, Young Tom is in the front row, second from the right. He would most likely have rowed for Barnes RC, a club for professionals. Most clubs at Green’s were amateurs or tradesmen amateurs.

Crews at Green’s in the interwar period, 1919-1939

Tom with four women two of whom are sporting the club symbol of Alpha RC c.1919.
Thames Tradesmen’s RC, 1928.
The woman is wearing coarse stockings suggesting the 1920s rather than the 1930s.
Young Tom standing on a boating stool, a wheeled platform that boatmen would put in place so that crews could get in and out of the boat without getting their feet wet. A tip would be expected.
A picture presented to Young Tom by a University of London women’s crew in June 1926.
Getting a heavy eight out, 1920s.
Probably a University of London crew, 1930s.
Women from the London School of Medicine, 1920s.
Alpha RC in front of the shed adjacent to the upstream side of the boathouse.
A men’s four of the 1940s or 1950s.
A 1939 picture of a women’s crew going afloat from Tom Green’s with their newly issued gas masks. There were terrible memories of gas attacks on soldiers in the 1914-18 War and the threat of gas bombs dropped on civilians hung heavy on the public consciousness.
A race possibly starting from the boat race finish.
Post rowing relaxation.

Crews at Green’s after the 1939-45 War 

The clothing suggests the 1950s. An aging Young Tom is second from the left.
Alpha afloat, 1960s.
Alpha, 1962. The wooden handrails have been replaced by tubular steel, but the original steps still look unsafe.
A four from the ‘60s.

Final Days

In January 2023, Simon Wass posted this in the comments section of my 2014 post on Green’s: 

I remember Old Ma Green’s place in the 1970s. I went to Chiswick Comprehensive School and we had a few eights, fours and sculls in the new boat house next door (Chiswick Boathouse which opened in late 1973, TK). When Ma Green died (in 1975), a friend and I went in to the Thos Green boat house to look around. I still remember the interior quite clearly. It had a club room at the back with rows of coat hooks and a large board hand-painted with previous club member names. You could see it had been a nice place and the scene of many happy occasions. But the floor had caved in and now sloped into a swamp of mud and river water. It was a very tragic yet magical experience. However, Ma Green’s accommodation was extremely squalid and contained examples of some rather eccentric behaviour. It was a great shame when it was eventually torn down. It was quite a landmark and the Greens were well known on the riverside, even amongst us rowdy school kids.

While Simon says that Green’s was “eventually torn down”, in fact it burned down on the night of 4 August 1978, probably due to arson. 

In 1957, rowing journalist Hylton Cleaver wrote, “Tom Green’s today is a relic of the days when Putney Bridge was wooden and horse-drawn coaches crossed it…” In fact, the boathouse that opened 25 years before Queen Victoria died and that closed in the year that Microsoft was founded, i.e. 1876 to 1975, remained a relic to the end. However, throughout those ninety-nine years, Green’s was always a home for the homeless.

Addendum. In a non-chronological and undoubtedly incomplete list, these are some of the clubs that rowed out of Green’s between the 1870s and 1970s. Those marked with an asterisk are known to have been exclusively women’s clubs, those with two asterisks are those known to have had women’s sections: Cobden, Gaiety, Nelson, Temple, Metropolitan Police, Helen Smith’s*, The Times, Daily Mail, News Chronicle and Star, University of London Medical School, The Ladies Boat Club of the UC Hospital*, The Ladies Boat Club*, Simpson’s on the Strand, Grosvenor, Thames Tradesmen’s, Barnes Bridge, Amalgamated Press, Alpha Ladies*, London Transport, St George’s Ladies*, Falcon, Anglian, The Field, Grove Park, Putney RC, Chromo, The Ladies Boat Club of the London School of Medicine*, The RAF Association, Chiswick General, Ace*, Cromer, Evening News, Odham’s Press, Cowparians, Barnes, Barnes and District, Borough Polytechnic, Emmanuel School, Westminster City School, Panther, King’s Printers, Gainsford, Civil Service Ladies*, Ministry of Health**, the Ministry of Labour**, Customs & Excise**, Post Office Savings Bank**, London Telephone Service**.

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