Listed Building Description
Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.
TL 4559 CAMBRIDGE, FORMER CB CUTTER FERRY LANE (South side)
667/15/10087 Corpus Christi and Sidney Sussex Boathouse
II
Boathouse with changing facilities. 1958 by David Roberts, extended to sides in 1980s. Light-weight steel frame on piled concrete foundations infilled with brick and some weatherboarding to first floor front; shallow first floor houses changing facilities and has flat felt roof, deeper three bay boat store below has lean-to extensions and pitched roof. Symmetrical composition of three main bays to front, and the set-back lean-tos either side, all with folding doors under clerestory glazing' now blocked. Above, changing rooms with near-continuous broad band of glazing, with square panes and doors at either end, are set behind steel and timber balcony and reached via spiral concrete stairs to either side, with powerful newel posts and slender steel balustrade. Shields of the colleges sharing the boathouse to front, and four flagpoles complete the delicate grid of the composition. Interior of the ground floor a simple store; the upper floor noted to be 'spartan', as it does not overlook racing and elaborate facilities were not required. Rowing started at Cambridge in the 1820s (before it was introduced at Oxford); Corpus Christi College founded its first club in 1827-30; Sidney Sussex followed in the early 1830s. They were the first colleges to build a combined boathouse. This was the first modern style boathouse built at Cambridge, and was widely imitated here and elsewhere. It is a graceful little building, making the most of a small budget ("13,000). The thin, angular lines are appropriate to its river setting, and contrast with the more flamboyant styles of the earlier boathouses alongside.
Listing NGR: TL4579859099