George Heriot's School Rowing Club - Edinburgh | UK Rowing Clubs | Row HQ

George Heriot's School Rowing Club (GHSRC) is the rowing club within George Heriot's School, an independent school in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. The club competes regularly in Scottish Rowing regattas and Head of the River races, as well as larger national competitions including the Schools' Head of the River Race and the National Schools' Regatta. GHSRC is affiliated to Scottish Rowing and shares a long-standing rivalry with neighbouring George Watson's College Boat Club. The club was founded in 1953. For much of its history it centred on Bob Neill, a physics teacher who led the rowing programme for thirty-six years and won three fours titles at the National Schools' Regatta between 1982 and 1990, plus girls' fours wins in 1998 and 2000. Following Neill's retirement the programme declined, but it was revived after James Davidson was appointed as the school's first full-time head of rowing in 2015. Since then the club has re-established itself nationally, winning National Schools' championship events in 2022 and 2023 and producing junior internationals and athletes who have gone on to NCAA scholarships. Most water training takes place on the Union Canal at Craiglockhart, where the club has a boathouse, while indoor training is on the school's city-centre campus and the performance squad travels to Strathclyde Park for weekend sessions on the international course. The Union Canal is a narrow, winding stretch of roughly 1,300 metres shared among four clubs. Athletes typically start in coxed quads from around age 14 before progressing to doubles and singles. The club's colours are navy blue and white. GHSRC has produced multiple British champions across its history, with winning crews recorded at the British Rowing Championships in years including 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, and most recently a Women's J16 quadruple sculls title at the 2025 British Rowing Club Championships. Notable rowers to come through the club include Olympians Benjamin Helm (Atlanta 1996) and Polly Swann, who won a silver medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics and finished fourth at Tokyo 2020.