Hambleden Lock

Lock and weir on the Thames below Henley. In Three Men in a Boat the friends beg drinking water from the lock-keeper, who tells them to take it from the river.

At a glance

Source	Author	Role	In one line
Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K. Jerome	setting	Short of water, George asks the lock-keeper for some and is told to drink the river, as he has for fifteen years.

Three Men in a Boat — Jerome K. Jerome (1889)

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

We found ourselves short of water at Hambledon lock; so we took our jar and went up to the lock-keeper’s house to beg for some.

• Role: setting
• In the book: Out of drinking water at ‘Hambledon lock’, they take their jar to the lock-keeper’s house; he tells them to help themselves from the river, which he says he has drunk for fifteen years. The narrator then recalls a dead dog floating past in a Windsor backwater.
• Why it matters: A small comic exchange that leads into the book’s running joke about Thames water.