Boathouse Island

Estimated flow from the Cherwell is m³/sec
How is flow estimated?

BOATHOUSE ISLAND - TEN BOATHOUSES

The triangular Island bounded by the Main Cherwell Cut, the Isis, and the narrow northern upstream mouth of the Cherwell. Its only land access is the pedestrian bridge from Christchurch Meadows. There are ten college boathouses which house twenty four college boat clubs
If you have a propeller, keep dead slow if there are any rowing craft or punts about.
The boat houses are on the RIGHT bank going UPSTREAM:
Beware on this site that Right and Left banks are now referred to as going upstream.
I apologise for the departure from the traditional convention which was promulgated and sanctioned by Charles Dickens, Jerome K Jerome, Fred Thacker and numerous others. However the Environment Agency have ignored all that and applied what they say is an International convention. I would have ignored it - only they have specified their EMERGENCY RENDEZVOUS POINTS using their Upstream convention. (The places you can meet ambulances if you dial 999 whilst on a boat) It has therefore become a serious matter and I have reluctantly gone along with it.
(Somebody tell the Parisians their left bank is now their right bank!)
(NB list in order going downstream because this is the direction from which Oxford sees its boat houses!)

For completeness here are the other Oxford rowing boathouses -

ALSO ROWED:
St Benet's Hall (Falcon Rowing Boathouse?)

1955: Eights Week. Notice the transitional stage between the old College Barges as College rowing headquarters, and the new boathouses.

Eights week, 1955

The College Barges have now gone. (See the Swan at Streatley)
1890: College Barges, Francis Frith -

1890: College Barges, Francis Frith

1893: From "The Oxford Magazine" -

BEFORE THE EIGHTS

MID-May ! and the Eights are upon us,
and looming already in sight
The vision of Schools that we look to with terror,
yet half with delight,
To think that at last they'll be done with,
and clad in a decent degree,
We shall laugh at our Tutors and leave them to "viva" themselves,
and be free.

Yet 'tis pleasant to linger a moment,
while May wears the glory of June,
And the fragrance of midsummer floats from the meadows,
where sudden and soon
The flowers of several seasons
have blossomed together in one,
Ragged robin and clover,
and comfrey and sorrel ablaze in the sun.

What a Term ! was the cricket-field ever
baked brown at so early a date ?
Or the river so shallow that scarce
there is water to carry an Eight ?
Yet for sake of our sisters and cousins,
some water no doubt will be found
To float us a week for the racing
and save us from going aground.

For though Tutors be born with discussions
to fix the foundation of Ford,
Though the Council is still in existence,
and Delegates meet to be bored,
Though Professors, turned architects,
lecture so learned on "gablet" and "squinch"
And explain how St. Mary's was built
at the first to the tenth of an inch

Still the pleasant May world will go gaily unheeding,
and bonnet and frock
Invade the Broad Walk and the Barges,
and from Folly Bridge down to the Lock
The stream will be crowded with faces
as eager as ever to see
If Magdalen keeps head of the river,
or which will be first of the three

That have struggled these years;
and the shout will re-echo from lungs that are strong
On the meadow, the bank and the Barges,
and they will be flashing along,
Those sixty-foot racers that throb
to the stroke as the lilt of a song.
So the race goes its way, and St. Mary's
looks wistfully down at the stream
She has loved through the ages,
to wonder if scaffolds and poles are a dream,
And Professors and pedants but shadows
that pass as a vapour and die,
To leave her unharmed and triumphant
the glorious Queen of the High.