Teddington Lock is a complex of three locks and a weir on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

between Ham and Teddington in the

London Borough of Richmond upon Thames The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in southwest London forms part of Outer London and is the only London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the Londo ...

, England. Historically in

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 ...

, it was first built in 1810. The limit of legal powers between the

Port of London Authority The Port of London Authority (PLA) is a self-funding public trust established on 31 March 1909 in accordance with the Port of London Act 1908 to govern the Port of London. Its responsibility extends over the Tideway of the River Thames and its ...

, the navigation authority downstream to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

and that upstream to small headwaters of the river, the

Environment Agency The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and en ...

, is marked nearby by an

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by An ...

on the "

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

" ( towpath, right) bank. The weir named Teddington Weir marks the river's usual

tidal limit Head of tide, tidal limit or tidehead is the farthest point upstream where a river is affected by tidal fluctuations, or where the fluctuations are less than a certain amount. This applies to rivers which flow into tidal bodies such as oceans, ...

and is the lowest on the Thames. This lock is the lowest full-tide lock and second lowest of all-tide locks on the Thames. The complex of civil engineering or infrastructure in essence consists of a large long weir and three locks: a conventional launch lock in regular use, very large barge lock and a small

skiff A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for leisure, as a utility craft, and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have deve ...

lock. The barge lock was made to accommodate long barges, steamers or passenger ferries and has an additional set of gates half-way to operate more quickly for shorter craft. The staggered structures incorporate two reinforced narrow islands. The upper island is traversed by and accessible by the lock gates or

Teddington Lock Footbridge The Teddington Lock Footbridges are two footbridges over the River Thames in England, situated just upstream of Teddington Lock at Teddington. There is a small island between the bridges. The two footbridges were built between 1887 and 18 ...

Location and design

The greater lock is against the general south (right, towpath or Surrey) bank of the river which is for 500 m north-east here; a middle lock being that most regularly used spans a long thin island which has lawns, places for boat owners to sit and a lock keeper's cabin and short thin island which is a thin wedge of concrete and a broad canoe/kayak stepped portage facility. The river downstream of the lock is the Richmond and Twickenham reach of the

Tideway The Tideway is a part of the River Thames in England which is subject to tides. This stretch of water is downstream from Teddington Lock. The Tideway comprises the upper Thames Estuary including the Pool of London. Tidal activity Depending on ...

, a reach of semi- tidal river due to the fact the Richmond Lock and half-tide barrages limits the fall of water thereby maintaining a head of water to aid navigability at and around low tide. Though the weir at Teddington Weir marks the managed river's usual

, after prolonged rainfall causing very high fluvial flow, specifically at high tide, a higher limit of slack water (stand of the tide) causes

eddies In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid is in a turbulent flow regime. The moving fluid creates a space devoid of downstream-flowing fluid on the downstream side of the object. Fluid ...

to arise as far upstream as the top of this reach, the next lock. The large, bow-shaped Teddington Weir is against the opposite bank. A series of two footbridges at differing heights make up a structure which crosses the locks, the middle island that has the lock keeper's cabin and the weir pool,

History

First lock, 1810

The

Navigation Act The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The ...

obtained in April 1771 by the Thames Navigation Commission did not allow them to build locks below

Maidenhead Bridge Maidenhead Bridge is a Grade I listed bridge carrying the A4 road over the River Thames between Maidenhead, Berkshire and Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. It crosses the Thames on the reach above Bray Lock, about half a mile below Boulter's ...

, but from 1802, several plans for locks in the First District of the Thames, stretching from Staines to Teddington, were drawn up. Stephen Leach took over the post of Clerk of Works for the First District in 1802, following the retirement of Charles Truss at the age of 82. Just before his retirement, Truss proposed locks at Molesey and Teddington, each having a weir with long tumbling bays, similar to modern practice. John Rennie had suggested a series of long cuts in 1794, and Truss adopted the same idea. Rennie and William Jessop again proposed four long cuts in 1805, each about , but the Navigation Committee were thwarted by strong opposition from landowners. Zacchary Allnutt, by then Surveyor for the Second and Third Districts, stretching from Staines to Mapledurham near Reading, suggested locks at Chertsey, Sunbury and Teddington in 1805. Rennie submitted new proposals in 1809 for nine locks between Staines and Twickenham; two would be without weirs, seven would require large weirs to be built. Finally Leach drafted plans in 1810, which he suggested were "at once practicable and expedient, the least expensive, and the most likely to pass through Parliament without opposition and yet calculated to remedy the most prominent evils complained of." An

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliame ...

was obtained by the City of London Corporation in June 1810, which authorised construction of locks and weirs at Chertsey, Shepperton, Sunbury and Teddington. Each would be with the associated weirs having ample capacity for flood conditions. Rennie, Leach and the Navigation Committee visited the sites in July, to finalise the positioning of the lock. Leach then took charge of the work, which was undertaken by contractors Joseph Kimber and John Dows who also built Sunbury Lock. Work at Teddington started in September 1810, but there were delays caused by flooding in November and December, and Leach awarded the contractors an extra £500. The lock was finished and opened in June 1811, but the weir was incomplete. The cofferdam protecting the works would need to be removed as river levels rose in the winter, which would have delayed completion until the following July, and so again Leach stepped in, awarding advance payments to the contractors, which enabled them to finish on time. The lock was further upstream than the present lock complex at the point where the footbridge now crosses. It comprised three pairs of gates as stipulated in the act. Total cost for lock, cut, weir, ballast and ground was £22,035 10''s.'' ''d.'' () of which the land from Lord Dysart's estate cost £282 10''s.'' 5''d.''. The lock was, at first, highly unpopular with the local fishermen and bargemen. After attempts to smash it, the lock keeper was granted permission to keep "a

blunderbuss The blunderbuss is a firearm with a short, large caliber barrel which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity or caliber. The blunderbuss is commonly consid ...

with bayonet attached thereto" to ward off attacks.

Rebuild, 1857

By 1827 the timber lock needed considerable repair and in 1829 the weir was destroyed by an accumulation of ice. It is noted that in 1843 the lock keeper prevented a steam vessel from ascending the lock. At that time steam vessels were limited to travel as far (upstream) as Richmond. As originally built, the lock had timber sides up to normal head water level, and turf above that. The crest of the weir was above low water level at Teddington, but following the removal of the piers of old

London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It re ...

(demolished 1831) in 1832, the drop increased to and increased to when dredging of the river was carried out. At tidally lower water occasional grounding of

barges Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...

took place below the bottom sill. Consideration was given to removing the lock altogether in 1840. However, it was decided to rebuild the lock and in June 1854 proposals included providing capacity for seagoing craft with a side lock for pleasure traffic. In June 1857 the first stone of the new lock was laid at the present position, the central of the three, opened in 1858 together with the narrow

lock,. The boat slide, separate, was added in 1869 and in the 1870s the weir collapsed twice causing enormous damage. After the weir had been rebuilt in 1871, sluice bays spanned around , similar to the tumbling bays.

Footbridges and barge lock

The footbridges were opened in 1889 and finally the barge lock, the largest lock on the river, was built in 1904–1905. of the extracted gravel was used to raise the level of Cross Deep Ait, a former ait adjacent to Swan Island downstream, to protect it from flooding. The footbridges are Grade II listed.

World War II

In 1940 Teddington Lock was the assembly point for an enormous flotilla of small ships from the length of the River Thames to be used in the

evacuation of Dunkirk The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the n ...

Recent developments

Early twenty-first century renovation and improvement work in the area around the locks was undertaken as part of the Thames Landscape Strategy Teddington Gateway project. In 2009 a local community group initiated a feasibility study for exploiting Teddington's weir for electricity generation, inspired by similar community-led generation schemes;

Torrs Hydro Torrs Hydro is a micro hydroelectric scheme, owned by the community, in New Mills, Derbyshire. It is located on the River Goyt, immediately after its confluence with the River Sett at the Torr weir. A 2.4-metre diameter steel trough screw turbin ...

and

Settle Hydro Settle Hydro is a micro hydroelectric scheme, owned by the community, in Settle, North Yorkshire, England. It is located on the River Ribble, at Settle Weir near Bridge End Mill. It generates 50 kW of electricity using a screw turbine i ...

. The study was encouraging and the ''Ham Hydro'' project now proposes using three reverse- Archimedean screws with a total output of . Environmental concerns, notably those raised by anglers about the potential effect on fish populations, prompted further environmental surveys during 2012. The outcome of these considerations is awaited before the

will determine whether planning permission is to be granted for the scheme.

Access to and across the lock

The lock is on the towpath on the Surrey side in Ham about a mile below Kingston-upon-Thames. Parking is generally over 100 m distant. The nearest road is Riverside Drive in Ham. Alternatively the lock can be reached from Ferry Road Teddington over the footbridges which cross the river there.

Reach above the lock

Located above the lock is

Trowlock Island Trowlock Island is a residential island in the River Thames upstream of Teddington Lock on the non-tidal Kingston reach less than 10 metres from the northern bank, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. Geography Tedding ...

, towards the Teddington bank, followed by

Steven's Eyot Steven's Eyot (or Steven's Ait) is a narrow ait (island) in the River Thames in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, London, England, on the non-tidal reach above Teddington Lock. Geography Steven's Eyot is below Kingston Railway Bri ...

in the centre of the river. There are then Kingston Railway and Kingston Bridges. After the river then curves sharply to the right with

Thames Ditton Island Three river islands (aits) form a linear group, close to the junction of the two main old streets of Thames Ditton village, in the River Thames in a corner of modern Surrey, on the Kingston reach above Teddington Lock. Thames Ditton Island, the ...

towards the village of the same name. Finally before Molesey Lock is Hampton Court Bridge. Despite settlements on both sides of the lock having formed part of London since the 1960s, the banks are still often referred to as the "Middlesex" and "Surrey" banks. On the Middlesex (Teddington etc.) side of the river going upstream, the bank generally consists of homes and gardens/communal grounds up to and inclusive of

Hampton Wick Hampton Wick, formerly a village, is a Thames-side area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, and is contiguous with Teddington and Kingston upon Thames. It is buffered by Bushy Park, one of the Royal Parks of London from Hampton ...

at Kingston Bridge;

Teddington Studios Teddington Studios was a large British television studio in Teddington, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1 and others. The complex also prov ...

, Lensbury Club, watersports clubs/a football club and the nature reserve at Trowlock are on the stretch. Above Kingston Bridge is Hampton Court Park, which stretches as far as Hampton Court Bridge. Half the

Longford River The Longford River is an artificial waterway, a distributary designed to embellish a park, that diverts water from the River Colne at Longford near Colnbrook in England, to Bushy Park and Hampton Court Palace. Its main outlet is to the re ...

, which feeds the water-features of Hampton Court Palace, runs out of a grated culvert opposite Raven's Ait and below the Water Gallery. After Hampton Court Bridge (along the side of the weir stream) the bank adopts food/hotel use then residential use. TeddLockReach01

On the Surrey side is a consistent green buffer and towpath between the river and Ham/ Kingston, widening to

Canbury Gardens Canbury Gardens is a public space in the Canbury district of Kingston upon Thames, along the Lower Ham Road, covering 14½ acres area between the road and the towpath along the River Thames, downstream from Kingston Railway Bridge. History In ...

, until the high-rise town centre is reached. The town's buildings switch to entertainment immediately south of Kingston Bridge. After the canalised mouth of the

Hogsmill The Hogsmill River in Surrey and Greater London, England is a small chalk stream tributary of the River Thames. It rises in Ewell and flows into the Thames at Kingston upon Thames on the lowest non-tidal reach, that above Teddington Lock ...

the riverside switches to a promenade with road by residential uses until Seething Wells reservoirs.

Raven's Ait Raven's Ait is an ait (island) in the Thames between Surbiton, Kingston and Hampton Court Park in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, London, England, in the reach of the river above Teddington Lock. Used as a boating training cen ...

is upstream of the bridges in the centre of the river at

Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the historic county of Surrey and since 1965 it ha ...

, followed by a marina. Long and Thames Dittons's riverside homes and pubs follow until beyond Thames Ditton Island. A riverside park and playing fields flank the mouth of the Mole until Hampton Court Bridge, near to the top of the reach, overlooking part of the Palace.

Hampton Court railway station Hampton Court railway station is a suburban terminus station at East Molesey, in the Borough of Elmbridge in the county of Surrey, 100 yards short of Hampton Court Bridge, the midpoint of which is a boundary of Greater London. The station is do ...

is before the bridge and just above it is Molesey Lock.

Boats

There are navigation transit markers between Kingston Bridge and Raven's Ait on the Hampton Court bank, to allow river users to check their speed. A powered boat may not pass except in emergencies between the markers in less than one minute. The reach is home to at least five

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' ( land yacht) over a chose ...

clubs, five rowing clubs, two skiffing and punting clubs, the Royal Canoe Club and two Sea Cadet centres. Numerous pleasure boats ply for trade, London Riverboat services and chartered trips between Kingston and Hampton Court.

Thames Path

The Thames Path as its towpath follows the Surrey side to Kingston Bridge where it crosses to run alongside Hampton Court Park, before returning to what is traditionally (and in navigation use) termed the "Surrey side" at Hampton Court Bridge.

Sinuosity

The river makes an acute inside angle on this reach — Teddington and Molesey locks are less than half the distance apart by land.

Sports clubs on the reach

* Royal Canoe Club *

Kingston Rowing Club Kingston Rowing Club (KRC) is a rowing club in England founded in 1858 and a member club of British Rowing. The club is located on the River Thames at Kingston upon Thames, downstream and north-east of Kingston Bridge and Kingston Railway B ...

Walbrook Rowing Club Walbrook Rowing Club, colloquially sometimes named Teddington Rowing Club, is a rowing club, on the River Thames in England on the Middlesex bank 800 metres above Teddington Lock next to Trowlock Island, Teddington. It is the lowest club on the ...

* Tiffin School Boat Club Tiffin School Boat Club Rowing Blade

* Kingston Grammar School Boat Club

* Kingston University Boat Club

The Skiff Club The Skiff Club is the oldest skiff and punting club in existence, having been founded in 1895. It is based on the River Thames in London, on the Middlesex bank between Teddington Lock and Kingston upon Thames. The Club supports two traditional ...

Dittons Skiff and Punting Club Dittons Skiff and Punting Club (DSPC or Dittons) is an English skiff and punting club, which was founded in 1923. It is based on the River Thames with a club and boat house at Thames Ditton on the reach above Teddington Lock. As well as taking p ...

* Thames Sailing Club * Tamesis Sailing Club * Minima Yacht Club *

Kingston Royals Dragon Boat Racing Club Kingston Royals Dragon Boat Club (DBC) is based in Teddington on the non-tidal Thames. History The club was founded in 1988 as the dragon boat racing section of the Royal Canoe Club (RCC), among the inceptive wave nationally. The section was ...

* 1st Surbiton (Sealion) Sea Scouts * Ajax Sea Scouts * Leander Sea Scouts

Popular culture and the media

The lock was the location of the Fish-Slapping Dance sketch in ''

Monty Python's Flying Circus ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became ...

''. In episode 1 of series 5 of the BBC TV police drama '' New Tricks'', the villain is arrested at Teddington Lock. Thames Television had its purpose-built

at Teddington Lock. In a third-season episode of ''Murder Maps'' Teddington Lock was the location of the brutal murder of two teenage girls in the summer of 1953. The murderer, Alfred Whiteway was apprehended, found guilty and was executed in December 1953. In Ben Aaronovitch's

Rivers of London Rivers of London may refer to * Blue Ribbon Network, a policy element of the London Plan relating to the navigable waterways of London * ''Rivers of London'' (novel), a 2011 urban fantasy novel by Ben Aaronovitch :* Peter Grant (book series) ...

book series Teddington lock marks the limit of the authority between the old man of the river, Father Thames and the newer Mother Thames in the Tidal Reaches

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Teddington Lock websitePhotos of Teddington Lock with brief descriptions at ''Ham Photos'' blog
{{LB Richmond 1812 establishments in England Ham, London Locks of London Locks on the River Thames Obelisks in England Teddington Transport in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Weirs on the River Thames