Spending his days working with traditional techniques and timber as Old Father Thames flows by only feet away, boatbuilder Mark Edwards’s career is steeped in history, Hollywood and royalty, discovers Ben Lerwill.
Wherever you find Mark Edwards, there’s a strong chance you’ll find water. Born in Wandsworth, London SW18, in 1954, within a holloa of the Thames, the master boatbuilder has spent the bulk of his life near the riverbank. His father took him out on punts as a toddler and he has memories of hours spent staring across the Richmond waterfront as a child. ‘I used to watch the boatmen in their waistcoats and braces, hiring out skiffs,’ he recalls. ‘A seed was sown.’
Fast forward almost seven decades and Mr Edwards is one of the country’s most renowned boatbuilders, with a legacy that includes the Gloriana Royal Rowbarge — commissioned for Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee — and, most recently, a pair of replica 1936 racing boats for the George Clooney-directed film The Boys in the Boat.
His profession is a lifelong passion. He was aged only 15 when he pooled his pocket money with two friends and bought an old canoe from a Hampton boatyard. ‘We spent a fortnight in the summer of 1970 paddling the length of the derelict Kennet & Avon Canal, camping by ourselves,’ he recollects, smiling at the memory. ‘We nearly drowned a couple of times, but I loved it. I was hooked.’
He soon convinced his headmaster at Thames Valley Grammar School in Twickenham to let him skip Wednesday-afternoon games in favour of going rowing: ‘We used to row from Teddington to Richmond and back, then fill up on cider at the pub — but I didn’t tell you that.’ After earning the respect of his river-faring elders, he spent much of his mid-teens being taught how to handle, restore and care for watercraft.
Gilded and glittering under her array of flags, Gloriana responds to her rowers as she glides up the Thames at Petersham.
This knowledge soaked into his young mind like varnish into a wooden hull. Formally setting up as a boatbuilder and repairer in 1980, he has spent the past 4½ decades honing his trade to perfection. The craftsman heads the team at Richmond Bridge Boathouses — where he has been based since 1992 — and still spends his days working with traditional techniques and timber as Old Father Thames flows by only feet away.
Cutters, wherries, skiffs, shallops and sail-boats all pass through his workshops. Much of the work lies in repair and restoration — the sounds of sanding and scraping are near-constant — but building historical vessels from scratch is another speciality. The key to success is attention to detail. ‘You have to understand the past,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a massive collection of old books and engravings, but it’s about more than simply copying a line that an old naval architect has drawn. You have to see the boat as something with spirit and soul, as far more than a static object.’
This ethos means the work that comes his way is nothing if not varied. In 2001, he was tasked by the BBC with building a replica of the wooden submarine made by Dutch engineer Cornelis Drebbel in 1621. This he did, creating an oak-framed sub that was trialled underwater in Dorney Lake, Buckinghamshire. The following year, he helped to craft an eight-oared shallop named Jubilant for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and was later asked to construct four medieval boats for director Ridley Scott’s 2010 film Robin Hood.
All of this paved the way for Gloriana, the glittering 18-oared Royal Rowbarge, in 2012. ‘When the proposal first came our way, the concept had been designed by Norman Foster’s firm and weighed 65 tons,’ he explains. ‘To me, that was impractical, so I drew something up that relied more on the lessons of the past, predominantly using sweet chestnut. It weighed 10 tons.’
When the idea was finally given the go-ahead in late 2011, time was tight. He describes the construction process, which involved 16 boatbuilders, as well as a legion of painters, upholsterers and woodcarvers, as ‘18 weeks of murder’, although his pride in the end product is tangible. In June 2012, Gloriana, with Mr Edwards on board, was the lead vessel in the 1,000-boat pageant that marked the Diamond Jubilee. Its reception was so positive that he was made an MBE — ‘it stands for Mark Bloody Edwards,’ he jokes — at Buckingham Palace the following year.
Amid the high-profile jobs, however, the boatbuilder has been instrumental in setting up Skerries for Schools, a scheme to get west London youngsters into traditional rowing. The charitable organisation, in which Richmond resident Bamber Gascoigne was also heavily involved, is still going strong today.
The most recent highlight in Mr Edwards’s career involves the Hollywood film The Boys in the Boat, which came out in late 2023. He was initially approached to create a section of a mid-century wooden racing boat that could be used for close-up shots, but convinced the American producers not only to commission a whole, workable vessel, but also an identical boat as a back-up in case of accidents.
‘I think they were a bit unsure initially, but they agreed and were stunned when we produced them not only on budget, but ahead of schedule,’ says Mr Edwards. ‘When the film came out, about 40 of us that had been involved in the project all piled into the local Odeon. We really enjoyed it — particularly as the boatbuilder plays an important part in the plot.’
Despite turning 70 this year, Mr Edwards has no thoughts of retiring anytime soon. In the meantime, he takes his position seriously as a guardian of an age-old craft. ‘Handing down techniques to the next generation of boatbuilders is a responsibility,’ he believes. ‘When you see youngsters coming good with practical, time-honoured skills, it’s fantastic.’
