Leicester Rowing Club - Leicester | UK Rowing Clubs | Row HQ

Leicester Rowing Club is based off Upperton Road in Leicester and rows on the Grand Union Canal's Mile Straight. The club describes itself as being in the heart of the city, while its chronology places the present rowing water south-east of the city centre and its site on the southern tip of Bede Island.

The club's chronology records its foundation at Belgrave in 1882, apparently through an amalgamation of three smaller clubs founded in the 1870s. It first competed at Loughborough and District Regatta in 1885 and held the first Leicester Regatta that year as part of the Abbey Park Flower Show. The club reformed after the First World War in 1920 and moved across the river to its present site in 1940.

A larger boathouse followed in 1962. The club became mixed in 1970, when its first women's crew represented Leicester at open regattas, and its current clubhouse opened on 23 November 1996 after grants towards the project.

Leicester now has junior, men's, women's and recreational squads, plus Learn to Row and coxing routes. The junior section is for boys and girls aged 11 to 17, while the senior squads train and race throughout the year. Recreational members row locally, visit other clubs and attend longer-distance recreational events.

Recent club news records three senior golds at the 2025 British Rowing Club Championships. It also reports that Leicester member Lauren Henry won gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics and that member Sophie Connolly set a British and world record during lockdown.

Leicester Regatta remains the club's own event. The official event page records annual results from 2009 through 2026, apart from the pandemic-era gap, and confirms that the club hosted racing on its stretch of river in April 2026.