Penton Hook Lock

Problems were long caused in erosion and to navigation by floodwaters topping the neck of the meander (a seasonal meander cutoff). The Corporation promoted the funding of the lock with formalised weirs in 1809, and Parliament passed its enabling act 1814. The lock was completed in 1815, two years after Chertsey Lock, as the Thames lock furthest upstream controlled by the City of London Corporation, 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 and so sited for the benefit of watermill power; the grain…

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 left bank marking the Church parish medieval border of Laleham and Staines upon Thames in Surrey since at least the Norman Conquest. By boat the lock can be accessed from Thorpe on the right bank.