The Thames from Hampton Court to Sunbury Lock

East Molesey

East Molesey Cricket Club

The cricket pitch is about 140 yards from Tagg’s Island, and a newspaper apparently offered a thousand guineas to any player who could hit a ball onto the island in a match.

 

The closest anyone got was on 26 April 1953 when an Australian, Keith Miller whacked a ball that fell into the Thames just three yards short of the island.

Tagg’s Boathouse

Thomas Tagg built a wonderful boathouse in 1889 in Gothic-Dutch style. This must have replaced an earlier boathouse, because Ripley’s 1884 history of Hampton says “the celebrated Moulsey Rowing Club” used the boat-house of Mr T G Tagg as its headquarters.

 

It included bedrooms on the upper storey and was used as an overflow for his hotel on Tagg’s Island.

 

The boathouse was demolished in 1993 and some hideous modern buildings shoved up in its place [lawyer’s edit—replace with “a prestige development of luxury riverside homes”.]

molesey boat club

Molesey Boat Club was founded in 1866.

 

They moved into a new boathouse on the Surrey bank in 1901, built by a subscription fund started off by one of the Tagg family—probably George Tagg.

 

The club has 700 members and 80 boats.

 

 

Molesey Boat Club, built in 1901

The Upper deck

Opposite the downstream end of Ash Island, just above the weir, was an open-air swimming pool called The Upper Deck.

 

It opened in 1936, just in time to be visited by the exiled Negus of Ethiopia, Haile Selasse.

 

The pool was bought by Esher Council in 1968 and refurbished so the water was heated. But it closed in 1990 and its site is now occupied by housing.