London 1908: Olympic venues overview
Fourteen competition venues were used for the Olympic Games London 1908, eight of which remain in use today: Hurlingham Polo Grounds (polo), the Northampton Institute (boxing), the Queen’s Club (tennis), Henley Royal Regatta Course (rowing), Southampton Water (water motorsports), Ryde Pier (sailing, three events), Bisley Rifle Range (shooting) and the Royal Clyde Yacht Club (sailing, one event).
Twelve of the competition venues already existed, one was new and one was temporary. The new venue, the London Olympic Stadium, has since been demolished, along with four of the existing ones. Most of the venues that remain in use are sports clubs, with several of them hosting major competitions and providing recreational and competitive sport for their members.
The London Olympic Stadium hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Also known as White City Stadium, it was the main centre of the Games. It was regularly used for over 55 years before being demolished in 1984. There was no official Olympic Village. Only two of the venues were used again when London staged the 1948 Olympic Games: Henley Royal Regatta Course and Bisley Rifle Range.
The London 1908 Games were also, in part, hosted by the Northampton Institute’s Great Hall, which staged the boxing competition. The Northampton Institute was the original name of City, University of London. It became City University of London in 1966, and took its current name in 2016. Nowadays, the Great Hall is a lecture space used by City, University of London.
The Northampton Institute was founded in 1894 with the aim of promoting “the industrial skill, general knowledge, health and wellbeing of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes”. The Great Hall, built in the 1890s, underwent reconstruction after being bombed during World War II, and it also survived a fire in 2001.
Now used for lectures, it is currently undergoing refurbishment, which will see it equipped with the latest technologies and a new lighting system. The university’s swimming pool was used as a training venue at the 1908 Games and is now a study area for students.
London 1908 began the now common practice of staging events outside the host city. The 6-, 7- and 8-metre sailing competitions, for example, were held at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, just off England’s south coast, while the 12-metre races were moved to the River Clyde in Glasgow on account of the fact there were no foreign entries and the British team was racing there that summer. Henley-on-Thames, where the rowing competitions took place, is around 50km west of London.