Arrival of Train-load of Visitors at Henley Station

Jolly boating weather as the hordes descend on Henley for the Regatta.

It's the first weekend of July 1899, and the Henley Regatta is getting underway. Film producers Hepworth & Co. noted that the carriagefuls of passengers were dressed for the occasion "as only visitors to Henley Regatta know how to dress", calling their film "an animated and interesting study of pretty women in beautiful gowns." The chaps are something to behold too, in boaters and blazers, ready for a day messing about in boats.

Train arrival films date back to Louis Lumière's L'Arrivée d'un train de la Ciotat (1896), which was very successful and much imitated, though not included in their legendary first screening in December 1895. Similar train arrivals and endless variations on the theme followed. Hepworth's film was the opener to a series of films documenting the Regatta in 1899.