Sonning Common

This 1893 view of the Catherine Wheel, an inn by 1499, shows it just before it took over the two Georgian brick houses beyond. On the right, the street still awaits the out-of-scale London and Counties bank, erected in 1892.
An extract from from"Henley-on-Thames Town and City Memories".

All three views taken by the Frith photographer in 1899 are south of the Regatta course, which from 1886 had its finishing line near Phyllis Court. In the first view (right) we are looking towards the bridge from south Riverside and the second (bottom right) was taken from the bridge itself. The third (bottom left) was taken looking along Riverside north with the gardens of the Red Lion on the right; this was a most exclusive seating area, but it has since been lost to road improvements. In this view we see the black poplars on the Berkshire bank which replaced the late 18th-century ones planted by Field Marshal Conway.
An extract from from"Henley-on-Thames Town and City Memories".

Pigot and Co’s National Commercial Directory, published in 1830, gives an interesting snapshot of the town just before its rapid decline (the building of the Great Western Railway killed both the commercial river trade and the coach trade at one fell swoop as a result of by-passing Henley). ‘Henley, a market town, and one of the neatest, cleanest, and most respectable in the County ... is exceedingly pleasantly situated on the west side of the river Thames’. Commenting on the town’s appearance, the Directory says that ‘its whole appearance [is] indicating recent improvements, and bearing evidence of the good taste of its inhabitants. The town hall is a considerable ornament to the town, and the market-house is a commodious and well constructed building’. It also describes the town’s then economic base: ‘a considerable trade is carried on from hence to London, in corn, malt, flour and timber; there is also a considerable manufactory for silk, and another near the town for paper. The inns here are respectable and comfortable; the principal commercial house is the White Hart’.
An extract from from"Henley-on-Thames Town and City Memories".

The reference to the Town Hall is to the one erected in 1795 to the designs of Alderman Bradshaw to replace the earlier one he demolished. The town also acquired that other symbol of Georgian respectability and status: Assembly Rooms, in Bell Street. This introductory chapter can only skim the surface to set the scene for what could be termed the photographic portrait of the town contained in the next five chapters. I have not mentioned the Civil War or local politics at all - these belong in other books; but I hope I have indicated that the town seen in the Frith views has much of its earlier framework or skeleton intact, with Georgian and Victorian facades jostling with or concealing Tudor or earlier timber- framed houses. This was a working town that grew up, like Marlow, fed by the river trade that transported the goods and produce of the hinterland, mainly to London. It had small houses too, and Friday Street was where the poorer tradesmen and labourers lived. However, by 1847 James Thorn could write in ‘Rambles by Rivers’ that ‘there are several large inns, to which was formerly a considerable posting trade attached, but it was almost destroyed by the railway’. The railway had, of course, missed the town, which was hardly surprising given its hilly surroundings. This decline after the railway had destroyed its river trade as well as the coaching trade led the town to look elsewhere for survival. When a branch line finally arrived in 1857, Henley developed both as a commuter town and as a leisure one. Henley was ahead in that game - its Regatta was a master-stroke, for it was founded by the citizens well before the great late Victorian and Edwardian boating boom; a boom depicted so wonderfully in Jerome K Jerome’s ‘Three Men in a Boat’ published in 1889. Henley had latched on to the newly-fashionable sport of rowing; this preceded the later Victorian boom, which also enthused the lower middle classes with their increased leisure and spending money. Its first coup was the very first Oxford and Cambridge boat race, held at Henley in 1829. Thus a river port with the piles of grain along its wharves, depicted in Ward’s 1835 painting ‘A View of Henley Bridge’, was transformed by the fashionable rowing fraternity and by an event that became a key event in the social calendar: the Henley Royal Regatta. Leisure, tourism and shopping replaced commerce, and the town revived; the railway station serviced the Regatta and that new phenomenon, the middle class commuter who travelled daily to London.
An extract from from"Henley-on-Thames Town and City Memories".

These views show each end of the bridge - two were taken in 1890. Photograph looks from the Berkshire side, from the balcony of the Carpenter’s Arms landing stage towards its rival, The Angel, whose tall 18th-century bay-windowed river elevation and riverside terrace are a well-known and very popular landmark; the Angel is perhaps the most photographed building in Henley. The other two views show the Carpenters Arms landing stage and boathouse, which in 1955 were rented to J G Meakes Ltd. The Carpenters Arms inn was built in 1714, but it was demolished in 1984 to make way for the Henley Royal Regatta headquarters.
An extract from from"Henley-on-Thames Town and City Memories".