The Championship Course is a stretch of the River Thames between Mortlake and Putney in London, England. It is a well-established course for rowing races, particularly the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. The course is on the tidal reaches of the river often referred to as the Tideway. Due to the iconic shape of the Championship Course, in orthopaedic surgery, an S-shaped incision along the crease of the elbow is commonly referred to as "a boat-race incision resembling the River Thames from Putney to Mortlake."
Putney Bridge
Boat houses on the river bank near Putney
Mortlake is a suburban district of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south bank of the River Thames between Kew and Barnes. Historically it was part of Surrey and until 1965 was in the Municipal Borough of Barnes. For many centuries it had village status and extended far to the south, to include East Sheen and part of what is now Richmond Park. Its Stuart and Georgian history was economically one of malting, brewing, farming, watermen and the Mortlake Tapestry Works (1617–1704), Britain's most important producer. A London landmark, the former Mortlake Brewery or Stag Brewery, is on the edge of Mortlake.
Mortlake from the Junction of Upper Richmond Road and Sheen Lane
This is a contemporary bust of Sir John Barnard who lived much of his adult life as MP in one of a few Georgian mansions built in Mortlake for London's upper class. It is kept at Stowe House, Buckinghamshire.
John Dee memorial plaque in the church of St Mary the Virgin Mortlake
Sir Richard Burton's tomb at St Mary Magdalen's Roman Catholic Church cemetery