History
The club was originally based on a barge near Bristol Bridge, in the city centre. In 1884 the clubhouse was replaced with "The Barge", which was a French frigate captured in the Napoleonic wars. The Barge housed all the club’s boats and documents and a cockroach infested changing room for the rowers. In around 1892, the Barge sprang a leak and sank just as she was due to be repaired, and much was lost. However she was raised, drained and used as clubhouse for another 8 years. In 1900, the club moved to St.Anne’s where the present clubhouse was built.
In the Second World War, the club was hit in a bombing raid on the pumphouse and the railway line behind it. With few active members left, the building fell into disrepair and boats were abandoned until after the war.
Bristol Ariel Rowing Club has fostered many rowers at all levels over the years. The one who went the furthest in his rowing career was Nicholas Birkmyre, who won Double Sculls Challenge Cup four times at Henley and came fourth rowing at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
Read more about this topic: Bristol Ariel Rowing Club
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)