Barley Mow (Clifton Hampden)

Thatched inn at Clifton Hampden on the Thames. Three Men in a Boat calls it the quaintest, most old-world inn on the river.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K. Jerome	backdrop	’The quaintest, most old-world inn up the river’, with ceilings too low for novel heroines.

Source: Exploration of Three Men in a Boat · Three Men in a Boat · Original · Readwise highlight

If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do better than put up at the ‘Barley Mow’.

Role: backdrop
In the book: The narrator recommends the Barley Mow to anyone staying the night at Clifton and jokes that its ceilings are too low for the tall heroines of novels and its steps too treacherous for drunken men.
Why it matters: A passing recommendation; the inn is a landmark of the journey, not a scene.