Facilities
City Barge is based at the Longbridges Boathouse, on the towpath on the Isis Reach in Oxford.
LONGBRIDGES BOATHOUSE
We share our facilities with Hertford College Boat Club, St Catherine’s College Boat Club, Green Templeton College Boat Club, Mansfield College Boat Club and St Hilda’s College Boat Club. We keep four sandolos in the boat bays and two mascaretas in the skiff bay at the side, next to a workshop where club members built a mascareta during the winter of 2022/2023.
City Barge shares a club room on the first floor with Hertford College BC, where we have meetings, and social events. The balcony outside the clubroom has a wonderful view of the river.
The new Longbridges Boathouse was opened in 1997, replacing an older boathouse called Tims Boathouse. The building was designed by MEB Design ltd and one of the architects was John Marsh, a Hertford College alumnus and a City Barge Life Member.
The new Boathouse was attacked on 4 July 2005, in an incident that the police identified as arson. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by members of the Animal Liberation Front. Luckily the building remained undamaged, even so boat storage areas and two club rooms suffered severe smoke damage. In addition, 26 college boats (eights and fours) were destroyed by the heat of the fire.
The club also rents part of a barn, outside Oxford, for storing boats and trailers indoors. Larger boats, which do not fit into the boathouse, are stored here. The barn has space for ten boats. We store the shallop “Royal Thamesis” here, on a trailer, ready to go to events.
We store three club trailers in the barn for moving flat-bottomed boats, and other spaces are rented out to members who keep boats on trailers in the winter and leave trailers in the summer.
