Lock Ahoy Penton Hook Lock Laleham Reach Staines
A Memory of Staines.
Eight months after I had my first baby Nadia Kersey-Brown, I went to live with my parents Clifford and Kay McLaglen at "Lock Ahoy" over-looking the Lock. I stayed from April 1967 until Jan 1968 and helped with the garden and cooking until my husband signed up at Fartown in Huddersfield now the Huddersfield Giants Rugby League Club. My father loved the River Thames and went fishing and rowed his boat. He was 76 to 77 years old and my mother 20 years younger. I also loved the river and often with my sister Katie, had to cross the weir, which was the only covered wooden weir in the area, and then, a metal bridge with handrails and then the Penton HookLock itself. It was dangerous becaue of the weir but a healthy respect for this area by canoeist and boat people was required to be safe. Now it is all flooded. "Lock Ahoy was wooden and built on stilts as a summer house for Victorians and later, the Edwardians. The edge of the river through our huge picture window was lovely and we had a beautiful garden at the back. What has happened to it since. I would love to know. Cynthia
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Both my brother and I were born when we were living in Lock Ahoy. My guess is we moved out when I was 5 or 6 so around 1967. My mother who is now 85 is taking the family on a river cruise. chartering a boat at Dachet for the August Bank Holiday week.
She wants to visit all the places she and we grew up showing the grandchildren. Grand Parents lived at leylham reach and Hampton Court all on the river.
We would like to see/ call into Lock Ahoy I think the property has now been redeveloped to a more substantial house but cant find any records.
The land used to regularly flood, we have pictures of my bother and I wading around in wellies in the water hence why the house was built on stilts.
Any body have any ideas?
Toad Hall has been rebuilt over the last two years and is now a very modern building, identical to its neighbour Boscobel. They have been renamed Summer Time and Lazy River. I met a woman called Claire a few years back who had lived at Toad Hall and remembered Charlie Chaplin coming to live/stay next door at Clar Innis, I know he came to England in 1952, perhaps it was then and possibly was related to another Chaplin who lived in Riverside.
I am texting together with material for a book on this road and would love to have any pictures, with dates, that you could let me see. Foggy.knight@tiscali.co.uk.
Many thanks. Su Knight
My father loved the river Thames and boating in it. He belonged to The River Rats who were actors and entertainers who raised money for children in need. He had retired and loved to see the river and row across it. I had brought my first baby to stay for a year whilst my husband found himself a job, so I really appreciated the river and all it had to offer. Just a few cottage towards Staines, up from Lock Ahoy, was a house which had once been a boat. It had been used to save our troops at Dunkirk and afterwards they had gone up the river and beached it and blocked it, so it would not fall over, The lady that lived there was very friendly and invited me in what a wonderful history she had to tell!, Cynthia McLaglen