Street view Medley Sailing Club

The Club's slipway is the most northern of the two marked (best seen in Defra map)..

How is flow estimated?

EA GODSTOW Downstream graph -
EA OSNEY Upstream graph -


British Moths racing at Medley Sailing Club

Medley Sailing Club Website
LEFT bank. By road go to Binsey ('The Perch') and turn right through (often locked) gate, down to river, and it's on your right.
1793: See an account of a sail from Folly Bridge to Sandford and then on to Nuneham in June 1793. There is a description of trimming the sails to get close to the wind and the patience needed in tacking.

1806: An early view of Port Meadow by William Warren Porter -


Mezzotint by William Warren Porter 1806
According to the Sailing Club magazine
the Mud Hut was where the Clubhouse is now.

1890: Summer Days on the Thames by Alfred J Church -

On the whole it is to those who love the idleness of the river in its less strenuous form, or to the shy and unskilful oarsman who would avoid those formidable tyrants of the water, the eight-oars, that the Thames above Oxford commends itself.
To this part of the stream, too, have been banished or removed by common consent, the sailing boats, whose wild career used to be a terror in former days to the throngs of rowers on the lower river. Their white canvas wings as they fly to and fro in the broad reach above Binsey, are a picturesque feature in the landscape.
The paternal government which the authorities of the University very properly exercise over their charges, has a storm flag hoisted when the weather is too rough to allow a sailing-boat to venture out with safety. It is a well-known fact that an Englishman has a great need, especially when he is young, of being protected against himself. He dearly loves to spice his pleasures with the sense of danger.

1909: The Stripling Thames, Fred Thacker -

Above [Medley] Weir [now one should say above Medley Footbridge], one afternoon in the young summer, the wide water was alive with yachts fluttering ready at the River's edge, or tacking against the clean fresh wind.
For here is the Oxford sailing gound, sailing for mere pleasure being tabu[sic] below Folly Bridge, owing to its interference with other craft in those somewhat narrow waters.
At a spot a quarter of a mile above Medley Weir is a once important crossing of the River known as Binsey Ford; a few yards above the causeway across Binsey Green. Hearne says this was the old ford from which Oxford has its name; but several other spots claim the honour; one by Folly Bridge, one over the old navigation, and others. All these last have fallen into disuse, but the Binsey ford is still clear to see, with its hard gravel foothold. It was in active use, indeed, within living memory, for the horses at grass on Port Meadow used to become so wild that they had to be headed across this ford on to Binsey Green, where they could more easily be caught.
"Where islands have formed on the meadow side there was formerly a foot or more of water, says Mr.Taunt; but on account of the dredging "near half the broad stream in the summer is entirely dry".