Norfolk Regatta by William Brown Macdougall (1868-1936). Oil on board. H 51 x W 61 cm. Collection: Atkinson Art Gallery and Museum. Accession no. SOPAG:986. Given by Mrs Watson in 1946. Image reproduced via Art UK under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-NC-SA).
The Norfolk Broads were (and are) a popular place for boating and artists. Regattas take place throughout the warmer months, and in the late nineteenth century the painter Henry Herbert La Thangue lived here for a while. The largest regatta is at Wroxham: “This is a grand place for a wherry, sir," says a yachtsman in Anna Bowman Dodd's On the Broads:
"She has room to move round. An’ as I was sayin’, this is a grand piece of water, this is. She’s rightly named the Queen of the Broads; there’s none to match her.” And Davy went on to explain that the shape of the Broad was peculiarly adapted for sailing, being oblong, with rounded corners.
"A wessel can sail right round it and back, with a jibe or two, an’ no tackin’ needed. An’ you should see the water frolic on her when the regatta’s on, an’ all the banks as crowded with craft as a Yarmouth quay. That’s a sight! Ah, but it’s a grand sport, a Wroxham regatta!” [Dodd 73]
Something of the flavour and excitement of such an event is caught here, with the predominant, blending blue of water and sky punctuated by specks of colour from the angular white sails of the yachts, people in rowing boats, flags on some rigging, and the long low line of the dark boatshed on the right. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to Related Material
- Macdougall's Water Frolic, Barton Road
- Henley-on-Thames: The Regatta Course II (late Victorian photograph)
- Manchester Regatta (illustration from the Illustrated London News)
Bibliography
Dodd, Anna Bowman. On the Broads. London: Macmillan, 1896. Google Books. Free Ebook.
Norfolk Regatta. Web. 10 October 2024.
Created 9 October 2024