The annual ‘Sudbury Amateur Sports, Bicycle and Boat Races’ taking place on the sports field in Quay Lane and the river beyond. Here the camera has caught one of the special attractions in 1888 – the town Postmaster, Mr Hills, making a balloon ascent from the field. The balloon was (ostensibly) filled with gas provided by the gas works just across the Lane; the balloon later landed safely at Newton Green.

Sudbury Amateur Sports, Bicycle and Boat Races

Stour Boat Club, 'Champions of the Orwell', 1913.

Champions of the Orwell

H. Nunn, B. E. Oliver, F. C. Cundy, E. Fitz-Gerald and T. T. Laker, Stour Boat Club. 

Winners of the Senior-Junior Fours at Ipswich Regatta

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A 1936 aerial view of the Quay Lane gasworks. The then-new boathouse is at the bottom of frame.


Aerial shot of the Quay Lane gasworks

An article reported in the Suffolk Free Press at the end of 1955. The image shows the newly-straightened section of river between the cut and the upstream railway bridge that limits the rowable section of the river. Previously, this section of the river meandered sharply in the wooded area now-bounded by the former railway, the cut and the new path of the river. The Press captioned the image: ‘The new river behind Priory Stadium, Sudbury. During the summer draglines have cut a channel 90 feet wide to the Stour a sweeping grandeur far different from the picturesque stream which wound its twisting way beneath overhanging willows less than a year ago. the arm of water branching off to the right is part of the old river, only 50 feet wide at this point and leads to the Stour Boat Club’s boat house. The course of the old river once passed to the left of the tree on the right-hand side of the picture, and a pillbox stood where the water of the new cut now flows.’  (‘Work on the Stour is well ahead of schedule’, Suffolk Free Press, 29 December 1955.)

‘Work on the Stour is well ahead of schedule’

The opening of the new (first and present) clubhouse

Opening of new clubhouse

Good Friday Opening, Friars Meadow, c. 1990

Good Friday Opening

Sam Hogsbjerg and Aidan Dunn carrying their pair at Henley in 2002.

Anniversary gallery

1875 to 1899

1900 to 1924

1925 to 1949

1950 to 1974

1975 to 1999

2000 to 2024

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