'We were surrounded by water': the river museum under growing threat of floods

From the reconstructed riverside of The Wind in the Willows to a historic Georgian rowing boat used in the inaugural Oxford-Cambridge race, the exhibits at the River and Rowing Museum celebrate the importance of British rivers.

- Jamie Grierson

But the award-winning building in Henley-on-Thames - designed by the modernist architect David Chipperfield - is facing a significant threat from the river beside which it resides.

In January the museum, which Chipperfield designed on stilts because of its proximity to the Thames, came the closest it has ever been to flooding after water rose within 5cm (2in) of the building's raised floor. The museum's director, the former British rowing champion Steve O'Connor, said significant flooding around the 26-year-old museum was no longer a "once in a generation" event, with the climate crisis increasing the frequency and severity of floods.

"We've often heard these floods as once in a generation but we're having that now every 10 years," O'Connor said, looking over the nearly overflowing flood plains outside the windows of the museum cafe.

""For years we've had warnings that we will have wetter winters, and I think now we have to agree that those wetter winters are here."