Looking Shipshape for Easter… 1 Apr 2013

With Easter on the horizon it was difficult to envisage the Clubhouse looking anything like ready by Good Friday… However after a concentrated effort from the Staff together with some high-powered vacuum cleaner pushers, we were ready with spring flowers in place to welcome our visitors for the weekend.

As you step inside the front door, the first impression is one of space, light and airiness and a wide view of the river. The walls of the former office have disappeared and have been replaced by floor-to-ceiling glass sheets with a sliding door to give access.

The space lost to the office caused by the pathway to the lift, situated in the far right hand corner of the building, has been more than compensated by squaring off the glass walls and incorporating the store which was previously accessed separately. The pigeon-hole box for letters, redundant for many years, has disappeared as has the public telephone box, equally redundant.

A glass fronted cabinet, intended to display insignia and clothing, marks the end of the new store, to the right of the front entrance. Wheel chair users enter by the front door and follow a pathway towards the river, turning right along by the windows which were previously in the office. The lift is easily accessible, opening and closing automatically, possible for use by someone in a motorised wheelchair without an attendant.

But the overall impression is the view of the river, as the architect Joseph Emberton visualised it in the early thirties. However, his vision has been improved – the glass walls that have replaced the solid walls of the original design, give a complete panoramic view. I truly believe that Emberton would approve of the new look and might, indeed, have used glass walls himself, had they been available to him.