Hugh Conway-Jones outlines how the headmaster of Wycliffe College, G W Sibly, arranged for his boys to have access to a range of water-based activities to complement their academic studies.
In 1889, Mr Sibly started paying the Stoudwater Company for the right to have four boats on the canal at Stonehouse, and he built a boathouse on the bank above Upper Mills Bridge which had an arm off the canal running into it so some boats could remain afloat.
The boys evidently enjoyed getting out on the water, but their enthusiasm did lead to some complaints from the canal manager. Within a year Mr Sibly received a letter noting that the activities of the boys was causing part of the canal bank to slip into the canal, and he was requested to put the matter right.
Another letter the following year concerned the favourite exercise of rowing down the canal for half a mile or more, turning in the wide area at the Ocean and returning to the boat-house. Some boys liked to extend this trip by rowing all the way around the Ocean, and this led to Mr Sibly receiving a letter from the canal manager: 'I should be glad if you would kindly give instructions to the young men using your boats not to row round the Ocean and splash the water with the oars, as by doing so they interfere with the holders of angling licences, and there are a number who will not purchase tickets in consequence'.
Wycliffe boys continued using the canal for boating well into the twentieth century. For many years the school paid for three to five boats, being a mixture of single sculls, tub boats and canoes. In 1911 they were given a special rate for eleven more boats built by the boys themselves. Usually, the activities were confined to the Stonehouse area, but occasionally a small convoy would travel as far as Saul Junction with boats being carried around locks to save the charge for using water.
In the 1920s, the old boathouse was demolished and replaced by the surviving larger building pictured. Here boats were stored on the ground floor, there were changing rooms above and other facilities included diving boards. But by this time the canal was not being maintained properly, and the school had to agree to pay for additional dredging. Eventually, in the 1930s, the school opened a new rowing centre at Saul Junction, and the old boathouse was then just used as a base for swimming and diving.
D1180 Minute Books, Letter Books and Rent Book.
Wycliffe College: the first hundred years 1882 - 1982 by S G H Loosley.
