Henley Royal Regatta Headquarters

Henley Royal Regatta Headquarters, designed between 1984 and 1986 by the Terry Farrell Partnership with Peter Brett as structural engineers, is a three-storey building fronting the river. The structure uses red brick exterior walls laid in English bond with stone dressings to the lower storey, cement rendered walls to the upper storey, and slate roofs.

The building is integrated with a raised basement platform that is trapezoidal in plan and rises to the height of the adjacent road bridge. At basement level, running the full width of the building at river level, is an internal wet dock and storage space that forms a platform for the narrower principal offices, reception and committee room at first-floor level, and a flat originally intended as the living quarters of the Secretary in the roof space. The principal storey at ground-floor level is accessed at the centre of the north side. The layout at ground-floor level is nearly symmetrical about both axes, with an enfilade of rooms along the south side. An entrance lobby gives access to a central reception room which leads to the galleried, double-height committee room on the western, river side. The interior was designed to allow for different types and intensities of use, from minimum staff levels in winter to intense activity in the weeks leading up to the Regatta.

The western, river elevation is symmetrical, of three bays, and alludes to a classical temple front rising above a platform. The brick retaining wall of the platform is battered and incorporates the rusticated lower storey with gated entrances to the wet dock and adjoining storage areas, detailed in patterned and rusticated brickwork with banded stone dressings. The gates are of mild steel. Corner buttresses have alternating flush bands of brick and stone topped by metal urns in a loosely classical style, and the terrace has a brick balustrade. A recessed central bay rises through the building and incorporates the entrance to the wet dock and an elaborate opening with the curved balcony of the committee room.

The ground floor is plastered and painted throughout in two shades of terracotta with a red cornice and abstracted triglyphs in bright blue. The central bay window is navy blue, framed by abstract columns and capitals in post-modern style with attached disks reminiscent of paterae. The central balcony is bowed with metal railings incorporating a motif of crossed oars. The gable is treated as an arcuated pediment, mirroring a Serlian window on a neighbouring property to the south and possibly drawing influence from classical buildings such as the Adam brothers' Royal Society of Arts building in the Adelphi, London. The Serlian window, with a relieving arch filled with fan-shaped and fluted radiating lines, is here translated to a large arched opening within which a semicircular, lead-covered arch projects and bears upon a pair of columns, forming the centrepiece of a metal screen that radiates outwards. At the roof ridge is the Regatta's 'HRR' monogram. Fixed above the eaves are a pair of floodlights housed in blue metal casings alluding to the acroteria of Greek temple architecture, illuminating the monogram and a central flagpole.

The entrance (north) elevation is of one-and-a-half storeys and five bays. A central entrance with glazed panels is surmounted by a dormer window and flanked by glazed bays of equal width. Into the brick terrace wall are incorporated a dedication stone and bronze plaques commemorating the building's RIBA and Civic Trust Awards. A stone plaque records the public house formerly on the site, along with a re-set date stone bearing the letters 'IC 1714'.

The rear (east) elevation is more modest, in keeping with the domestic buildings around it. It has a Serlian window at the centre of an open pediment. The central bay is in grey, contrasting with the outer bays which continue the colour scheme of the other elevations.

The south elevation is similar to the northern entrance front, with a dormer window giving access to a balcony set below the slope of the roof.

The principal rooms are carpeted and decorated in two shades of blue, with sky blue window and door frames and navy blue vertical elements. The committee room is a compact but imposing double-height space decorated in sky blue and mid blue. The former staircase, incorporating a bookcase, which led up to the first-floor flat, was removed in 2018 and an office was built to the rear of the committee room. The suite of five rooms along the southern side were originally arranged in an enfilade with connecting doors allowing the working space to be expanded. New bookshelves and cupboard space have been built in these rooms, including across door frames. Windows, radiators and sanitary ware in the kitchen and bathrooms have been replaced, together with door furniture across the building. The original patterned carpeting has been retained.