History

History of Broxbourne Cruising Club

There has been a rowing club in Broxbourne since 1847, but after the Second World War there was a decline in rowing so the club merged with the Sailing Club which up to then had operated from a site near our proposed new site, and they  set up canoeing sailing and in 1964 cruising sections being known as the Broxbourne Yacht Club.
Eventually the sailing section outgrew the existing premises and moved to a new site.
When the existing clubhouse caught fire the sailing section  took their share of the insurance money to build a new clubhouse on the gravel pit where they had relocated.
The rowing section and the cruising section combined forces to build a new clubhouse as a joint effort pooling their shares of the money. The club again became Broxbourne Rowing Club incorporating Broxbourne Cruising Club.
The two clubs continued to grow side-by-side enjoying the benefit of freehold ownership and each increasing their own facilities, the cruising club reclaiming land through their own efforts to increase the moorings to 26.
In 1995 the rowing section proposed building a new clubhouse funded by selling some land and a lottery grant application.  Both clubs supported the project, which included creation of extra moorings on the remaining land to bring the total number of moorings to 33.
The land was duly sold but the lottery funds never materialised and there were then only 10 permanent mooring spaces on the site. The rowers no longer  intended  to create any more mooring spaces.
The Broxbourne Cruising Club is the smallest on the Lee but is totally supported by its' membership  and always turns out a higher proportion of boats to cruises and regattas than other larger clubs.  We vowed to find a new site  in the same area so that the club could continue.

The New Site 

Most land nearby was unavailable, being zoned for housing or part of the Lea Valley Park.

All local landowners had been approached but only one site has been identified where the owners were willing to provide suitable land. That site is off Green Lane. It is a brown field ex landfill site described by Lea Valley Regional Park as “a Landscape Enhancement Area”  currently of  “weak or unrecognisable character”   mostly a thin layer of topsoil over builders rubble. The riverbanks do have some ecological value and   low profile wood clad staging has been erected  in the river to moor the boats too with board walks to the bank. This  leaves the river banks untouched and protected and they have been enhanced and   the rest of the site is now a nature reserve. There is a clubhouse, now being extended, gravel parking area usual facilities and a slipway to be built. 

The original application was submitted in 2002 and approved subject to  gaining an appropriate access, this took until 2005 and our new application was passed by Epping Forest Planning Committee on 31 August 2005 after meeting various conditions work on site started in 2007 and the first boats moved on. 

We have now been at the "new site" for 16 years and continue to look after the grounds and nature reserve as well as maintaining and updating the moorings. Our current project is a club house extension which in addition to extra space will provide updated shower and toilet facilities.

The club is a member of the Association of Waterways Cruising clubs and the Inland Waterways Association.

The rowing club at the turn of the century