Nicola Lisle bids a sad farewell to the River and Rowing Museum in Henley, Oxfordshire.
IF YOU want to visit the River and Rowing Museum in Henley you’ll have to be quick, because sadly this popular riverside attraction is closing in September after 27 years.
The award-winning museum’s final hurrah will coincide with this year’s Heritage Open Days weekend, which runs from September 20-21.
A period of closure in 2022 for essential building repairs and improvements, together with ever-increasing costs, plunged the museum into financial crisis, and in July this year trustees reluctantly announced its closure.
It’s a sad ending for an enterprise that took root in the 1980s, the brainchild of David Lunn-Rockcliffe, a former executive secretary of the Amateur Rowing Association, and rowing journalist Chris Dodd. With financial backing from local businessman Sir Martyn Arbib, and housed in a modern building designed by award-winning British architect David Chipperfield, the museum opened its doors to the public in August 1998. It was formally opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in November that year.
The River Thames at Henley has shaped the town’s industrial and social history, from its days as a thriving inland port during the Middle Ages to its later development as a tourist and sporting hotspot. The arrival of the railway in Henley in the 19th century destroyed much of the town’s commercial river trade, but its sporting fixtures – the Regatta, the Boat Race and the Olympic and Paralympic Games – transformed it into a fashionable social and holiday resort.
All of this is celebrated in the River and Rowing Museum, along with many other aspects of the town’s history, the nature and conservation of the river and the literature it inspired.
The Henley Gallery traces the town’s history, from the medieval port, when cargoes of timber, grain, malt and fish were transported to London in flat-bottomed boats known as ‘shouts’, to its burgeoning importance in Victorian Britain as a place of sport and entertainment.
Henley Regatta, founded in 1839, quickly became an important date on the summer social calendar, its popularity boosted in 1851 when Prince Albert became a patron and organisers were able to add ‘Royal’ to its name.
A former umpire’s launch, Eva, is on display in the gallery. The boat was purpose-built in 1874 but deemed unsuitable after only three years. Designed and built by John I Thorneycroft in Chiswick, she was one of the fastest launches of her day, reaching speeds of 16.5 miles per hour, and is one of the oldest surviving examples of a Victorian fast steam launch. She was restored in 1968, after spending many years in private ownership and eventually falling into disrepair, and became part of the museum’s collection in 1996.
There are more boats on display in the River Gallery, including the original Rob Roy canoe, built in 1865 by Searle & Sons of Lambeth for adventurer, writer and illustrator John MacGregor, whose voyage around Europe resulted in his best-selling book A Thousand Miles in a Rob Roy Canoe and led to the formation of the Royal Canoe Club in 1866.
Another boat with literary connections is the mahogany and oak Flierefluiter, a traditional Thames double sailing skiff from 1909, similar to the one used in Jerome K Jerome’s bestseller Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889.
You can also find out how the river around Henley inspired Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 masterpiece The Wind in the Willows – and don’t miss the exhibition near the museum entrance, in which scenes from the book have been recreated based on the illustrations by EH Shepard.
The Rowing Gallery gives detailed histories of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, and the Olympics and Paralympics, and the heroes who powered their way to victory.
Trustees now have the unenviable job of finding new homes for the museum’s 35,000 exhibits. They have also mooted the possibility of a new museum being developed at some point, on a much smaller scale.
Meanwhile, enjoy the current museum while you can. There is Henley’s beautiful riverside and bustling town to explore, as well as boat trips and boats for hire from Hobbs of Henley (https://hobbsofhenley.com), just down the towpath from the museum.
Visitor information:
River and Rowing Museum
Mill Meadows, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1BF
Open daily, 10am-4pm
Admission charge (free on September 20-21)
On-site parking (extra charge), cafe and gift shop
Getting there: Exit the M4 at Junction 6; follow A404(M) and A4130. The town and museum are well signposted. Alternatively, the museum is roughly five minutes’ walk from Henley Station.
