Penton Hook Lock is the sixth lowest

lock Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

of forty four on the non-tidal reaches of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It faces an island which was until its construction a pronounced

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ba ...

(a hook) and is on the site of its seasonal cutoff. It is against the

left bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terra ...

marking the

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

medieval border of

Laleham Laleham is a village on the River Thames, in the Borough of Spelthorne, about west of central London, England. Historically part of the county of Middlesex, it was transferred to Surrey in 1965. Laleham is downriver from Staines-upon-Thames a ...

and Staines upon Thames in Surrey for many centuries. Until 1965 their county was

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

. At it is the third longest lock on the river. A bend 1000 yards (900 metres) upstream of the lock, Silvery Sands, hosts Staines Regatta in the sport of

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically ...

annually. On the opposite bank in Thorpe is Penton Hook Marina which occupies lakes once land used for gravel extraction.

History

Problems were long caused in

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is dis ...

and to navigation by floodwaters topping the neck of the meander (a seasonal

meander cutoff A meander cutoff is a natural form of a cutting or cut in a river occurs when a pronounced meander (hook) in a river is breached by a flow that connects the two closest parts of the hook to form a new channel, a full loop. The steeper drop in grad ...

). The Corporation promoted the funding of the lock with formalised weirs in 1809, and Parliament passed its enabling act 1814.'Staines: Introduction', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3 ed. Susan Reynolds (London, 1962), pp. 13-18. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol3/pp13-18 The lock was completed in 1815, two years after

Chertsey Lock Chertsey Lock is a lock on the River Thames in England, against the left bank, an area of Green Belt including Laleham Park, the largest public park in Spelthorne. It faces the town of Chertsey and is the fifth-lowest of the forty-four loc ...

, as the Thames lock farthest upstream controlled by the

City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United King ...

, whose arms appear on the Lock Cottage built in 1814. It soon became the sixth lock proceeding upstream, as it is today. The main weir was built in 1846 when positioned below the offtake of the Abbey River, a medieval-established

leat A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Othe ...

and so sited for the benefit of watermill power; the grain mills were by the end of that century superseded by large industrial granaries. Horse, cattle and crop farming tenants had conflicting interest of reducing its flow; in

spate Spate is a surname, and may refer to: * Clive Spate (born 1952), British game show contestant * Oskar Spate (1911–2000), geographer * Virginia Spate (1937–2022), Australian art historian * Ute Späte (born 1961), German chess master Spate m ...

, the weirs elsewhere reduced the flow of the main river for a mile or more (such as beside Laleham Park). For a few years the leat was sourced above the main weir thus increasing the flooding of

Laleham Burway Laleham Burway is a tract of water-meadow and former water-meadow between the River Thames and Abbey River in the far north of Chertsey in Surrey. Its uses are varied. Part is Laleham Golf Club. Semi-permanent park homes in the west forms reside ...

and other fields of northern Chertsey; its shallow course has banks without

bunding Bunding, also called a bund wall, is a constructed retaining wall around storage "where potentially polluting substances are handled, processed or stored, for the purposes of containing any unintended escape of material from that area until ...

s and few sluices. These interests outweighing those of the outdated mill led to start of the Abbey River being moved to below the main weir of Penton Hook, reducing the enhanced flows along the Abbey River. To resume additional flood relief channels, as of the early 2020s, the Environment Agency proposes new instances of channels below this lock and that below to act in the same way as the

Jubilee River The Jubilee River is a hydraulic channel in southern England. It is long and is on average wide. It was constructed in the late 1990s and early 2000s to take overflow from the River Thames and so alleviate flooding to areas in and around the ...

upstream which fast tracks flows from above Maidenhead to below

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places Australia * Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area * Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland **Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...

. The lock was rebuilt in 1909.

Access and location

The lock is accessible on foot or bicycle along the towpath from Blacksmiths Lane and its spur Riverside or Penton Hook Road. The lock is against the

marking the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

medieval border of

and Staines upon Thames in Surrey since at least the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

. By boat the lock can be accessed from Thorpe on the right bank.

Reach above the lock

The river is built up in a range of suburban extents on both sides after the lock and passes through Staines-upon-Thames. On the near bank the ' bungalow town' of Penton Hook or South Staines was in existence by 1919. Between Staines Railway Bridge and

Staines Bridge Staines Bridge is a road bridge running in a south-west to north-east direction across the River Thames in Surrey. It is on the modern A308 road and links the boroughs of Spelthorne and Runnymede at Staines-upon-Thames and Egham Hythe. The brid ...

is an open riverside area with pubs on both sides and two of the seven mouths (see distributary) of the River Colne, briefly canalised, join the Thames, the eponymous final arm in the town centre and Sweeps Ditch. In the upper reach on the left bank is a replica of the

London Stone London Stone is a historic landmark housed at 111 Cannon Street in the City of London. It is an irregular block of oolitic limestone measuring 53 × 43 × 30 cm (21 × 17 × 12"), the remnant of a once much larger object that had stood ...

placed near here in 1285 to mark the upper limit of the tidal Thames and the jurisdiction of the City of London. Beside it is Church Island and a recreation area. Upstream are Hollyhock Island and its wooded islet

Holm Island Holm Island is an island in the River Thames in England on the reach above Penton Hook Lock, near Staines. It is on the Buckinghamshire bank, just upstream of Hollyhock Island. A house on it known as "The Nest" was used as a hideaway by the fut ...

; where the right bank was a 20th-century industrial area with

gas works A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space. Early gasworks Coal ...

and water works, redeveloped into business and retail estates. A widened single-span bridge designed by Edwin Lutyens carries the M25 motorway and the A30 across the river downstream of Bell Weir lock. Below the town's rowing club on the Egham side, Staines Regatta takes place at Silvery Sands 1000 yards (900 metres) above the lock in July.http://www.stainesregatta.com Staines Regatta. Accessed 2018-01-28

Thames Path

The

Thames Path The Thames Path is a National Trail following the River Thames from its source near Kemble in Gloucestershire to the Woolwich foot tunnel, south east London. It is about long. A path was first proposed in 1948 but it only opened in 1996. The ...

is on the

right bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrai ...

(that is by convention proceeding downstream) from Bell Weir Lock; at Staines Bridge it crosses to the left bank.

External links

Penton Hook Lock
at the River Thames Guide

References