Bell Weir Lock

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Bell Weir Lock
Waterway	River Thames
County	Surrey
Maintained by	Environment Agency
Operation	Hydraulic
First built	1817
Length	257' 7" (78.51m)
Width	24' 5" (7.44m)
Fall	6' 0" (1.82m)
Above Sea Level	47'
Distance to Teddington Lock	17 miles
Power is available out of hours

Bell Weir Lock
legend River Thames Ham Lane bridge Old Windsor Lock moorings Friary Island Pats Croft Eyot Magna Carta Island The Island weir weir Bell Weir Lock River Thames

Bell Weir Lock is a lock on the River Thames in England situated on the Surrey bank near Egham. It is just upstream of the M25 Runnymede Bridge which carries the M25 and A30 road across the river.

The lock was built by the Thames Navigation Commission in 1817 and rebuilt in stone in 1867. It is named after Charlie Bell, the first weir keeper and ferryman.

The weir is just a short distance upstream above the island.

Contents 1 Access to the lock 2 Reach above the lock 3 Literature and the Media 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Access to the lock

The lock can be reached on foot from the (A308) and is behind the Runnymede Hotel.

[edit] Reach above the lock

The reach runs through Runnymede to Old Windsor. Immediately on the Buckinghamshire bank is a major water input and management facility that supplies the Staines Reservoirs and King George VI Reservoir. There are then riverside dwellings at Hythe End, particularly on the Island. This is followed by woods along the bank in which Magna Carta Island is tucked away followed by Pats Croft Eyot placed a little further out. Further on are more riverside dwellings at Wraysbury and on Friary Island. The Surrey bank has riverside houses and then opens out into a recreation area. Following that are the Runnymead meadows and the end of these are marked by the Edwin Lutyens gate houses. The "Bells of Ouseley" pub here is supposed to commemorate the bells of Osney Abbey which were brought downstream at the dissolution and disappeared into the mud at this point. There is a built-up stretch at Old Windsor (which is now Berkshire). There are no river crossings on this reach.

The reach is home to Wraysbury Skiff and Punting Club. Egham Regatta is held near Hythe End in June and Wraysbury and Old Windsor Regatta is held there in August. Pleasure boats from the recreation ground also ply the Thames here.

The Thames Path runs along the Surrey bank all the way to Old Windsor Lock.

[edit] Literature and the Media

In Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome records

"Harris and I began to think that Bell Weir lock must have been done away with ... It was half-past seven when we were through .... We had originally intended to go on to Magna Carta Island....But somehow we did not feel that we yearned for the picturesque nearly so much now as we had earlier in the day. A bit of water between a coal barge and a gasworks would have quite satisfied us for that night"'

[edit] See also

• Locks on the River Thames
• Rowing on the River Thames

[edit] External links

• Bell Weir Lock at visitthames.co.uk

Next lock upstream	River Thames	Next lock downstream
Old Windsor Lock 2.92 miles	Bell Weir Lock Grid reference: TQ017720	Penton Hook Lock 2.84 miles