History of Rowing in the ACT

Celebrating 60 years

7. Black Mountain Rowing Club

The history of Black Mountain Rowing Club (BMRC) reflects a changing set of relationships, rather than a strict lineage. BMRC has undergone structural and has undergone structural and institutional change since its origin as a school rowing club run in conjunction with the Burns Rowing Club in the early 1960s.

For the first 30 years members operated under a confederation of interest, having at its heart an association with Telopea Park High School and Narrabundah College, operating under club names that reflected the differentiation of school and adult rowing. While club names changed, members were united by the sharing of rowers and equipment, overlapping coaches and joint management. Telopea Park High School sports master Alan Thornhill had started planning for schoolboy rowing well before the filling of Lake Burley Griffin, with teachers rowing as part of the Burns Rowing Club but also coach Telopea Park High students.

Telopea Park High went through a golden period from around 1966 to 1970 when it was the dominant schoolboys club in Canberra. During this period, Telopea’s eight won the Head of the Lake and the NSW Combined High School Championships. It also won the premiership for the 1969-70 season, scoring 202 points.

Club rowing was significantly affected by the restructuring of the school system after Narrabundah took over both the year 11 and 12 students in 1976 and students started rowing under the name of the Telopea Narrabundah Students Rowing Club. In early 1977 some of the graduating students formed the Eastern Suburbs Rowing Club. The formation of Easts provided the capacity to allow broader adult participation from the community. In the initial stages, Easts used the Telopea/Narrabundah fleet but provided administrative and coaching support. The school and adult clubs co-existed, linked with by the boat fleets, friendships and history. Around 1983, following limited parent participation in rowing at Narrabundah, Easts took over management of the fleet. Easts, in terms of its constitution and incorporation, is a direct predecessor to BMRC. However, in terms of membership and history, there was a folding of the Telopea/Narrabundah rowing interests into Easts. Easts incorporated in 1984 and changed its name four years later to the Narrabundah Rowing Club. This in turn was renamed to Black Mountain Rowing Club in December 1999 to reflect its changed composition and a new location on Black Mountain Peninsula.

In 2024, BMRC partnered with The Red Shed to support the establishment of a Red Shed community rowing program with the goal of enabling Rowing for All. Under the partnership, and thanks to the generosity of John and Jeanette Gasson, BMRC shares a new state of the art rowing facility located on Black Mountain Peninsular and a heritage that saw the club begin as Telopea Park High School that started life back to the old Nissan hut “Red Shed” in Kingston from the 1960s.

Telopea-Narabundah Student Rowing Club approximately 1980s

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Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, errors may exist. Please send advice of any errors or inaccuracies by email to:

Also your comments, suggestions and photos are sought to enhance this site.

The idea for this history originated from the Olympic Rowing and World Senior Rowing Championship histories written by Andrew Guerin and Margot Foster in 1991, 1992 & 1993 for the Australian team handbooks. Andrew Guerin developed and extended these histories to the current format in 2004 for publication in 2004 and then expanded the site.

Steve Roll has been an invaluable contributor to the website in locating errors and finding Christian names of rowers. His superb work is acknowledged.

© Andrew Guerin – 2004
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Disclaimer: Whilst extensive efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied, the editors take no responsibility for any loss or damage whatsoever arising from inaccuracies contained in this work.