Three Men in a Boat: Kingston to Oxford

The whole trip begins here: their skiff is waiting just below the bridge, Harris takes the sculls, Jerome steers from the tiller-lines, and Montmorency crouches suspiciously in the prow. From the water, Jerome muses on Kingston, once called Kyningestun, where Saxon kings were crowned; two tenth-century kings, Æthelstan and Æthelred the Unready, really were consecrated in the town. The quaint back streets that ran down to the water's edge are still there, and the market is still held daily in the Market Place.

Visitor guidance: The riverside below Kingston Bridge, a few minutes' walk from the Market Place, is where the trip begins.

Passing Hampton Court's river wall, Jerome gets the story out of Harris: how he once went into the hedge maze to show somebody else the way, from a map. He kept turning right, picked up every lost soul in the hedge, and led a growing procession of some twenty people back into the centre again; a woman with a baby clung to his arm for fear of losing him. They had to wait for an old keeper to come back from his dinner before anyone got out. The maze is still there, planted in the 1690s for William III, and the palace stays open to the public.

Visitor guidance: The palace and grounds are open to the public through Historic Royal Palaces; the maze is in the park.

At Weybridge the Wey, the Bourne and the Basingstoke Canal all empty into the Thames, and the lock sits just opposite the town. Coming in view of it, the men are greeted by George himself, inside the lock gates: his blazer hanging on a gate, his hat waved, and in his oilskin parcel a brand-new banjo, all the rage this season. Weybridge takes its name from an old crossing of the Wey, which still meets the Thames here beside the lock.

Visitor guidance: The lock and the rowing club sit on the river just north of the town centre.

Towed up to Staines, the men stop, and Jerome sits on the bank conjuring up 1215: barons and barges, King John in the middle of them, the Charter about to be signed on the water. Then all three row over to Magna Carta Island and look at the stone that stands in the cottage there, said to be where the great charter was signed. The official story is Runnymede, across the river, on 15 June 1215 — but the island has kept the popular claim ever since.

They pull up in the backwater just below Cookham for tea, and are through the lock by evening, the wind veering round behind them. What follows is the book's great sailing passage: the sail bellies out, the boat flies, and Jerome feels as near to flying as a man can get. Then, of course, he steers slap into a punt, and three old fishermen deliver long, carefully thought-out curses and are told they ought to be grateful for a little excitement. The village is still the quiet Thames-side place Jerome describes, and boats still moor along the long stretch above Cookham Bridge.

Location precision: The book doesn't say which backwater they had tea in; the pin marks Cookham Lock, which they passed through that evening.

Visitor guidance: Moorings are available above Cookham Bridge for boaters; the village high street is a short walk up from the lock.

After the punt, George steers them up to Marlow, where they leave the boat by the bridge and stay the night at the Crown, one of the pleasantest river centres Jerome knew. The next morning they revictual for three days, refuse to let any shop send its goods later, and end up walking to the river at the head of a procession of shop boys — "our departure from Marlow I regard as one of our greatest successes." Shelley lived in a house in West Street from 1816 and wrote The Revolt of Islam there.

Visitor guidance: The bridge and riverfront are at the south end of the High Street; Shelley's house is in West Street.

Henley is getting ready for the regatta, and full of bustle, when Jerome and George leave Harris in the boat and go for a stroll. It is nearly eleven when they set off on their four-mile walk home through dark, silent fields. The trouble is the islands: they cannot remember which one the boat is tied to, and they shout themselves hoarse from the first island, then the next, getting no answer. Just when they have given up all hope, a glimmer in the trees on the far bank. The Henley Royal Regatta still fills the reach every summer; it was first staged in 1839, half a century before the book.

Location precision: The men walk the town and lose their boat among the islands; the pin marks Henley Bridge in the centre.

Visitor guidance: The regatta races on the reach just north of the town in early July; the towpath gives free viewing.

Six miles above Streatley the men reach Wallingford, which Jerome calls a very ancient town and an active centre for the making of English history. It was walled and fortified until the Parliamentary War, when it suffered a long and bitter siege from Fairfax; as the last Royalist stronghold in Berkshire it held out for sixteen weeks before surrendering, and then the walls were razed. Fearing the castle might be used in a future uprising, Cromwell ordered its destruction. It is still a quiet market town, its square framed by the Town Hall and the Corn Exchange.

Location precision: The men row past the town; the pin marks Wallingford Bridge by the old centre.

Visitor guidance: The market square, Town Hall and Corn Exchange sit in the centre of the town.

Iffley Lock at about half-past twelve, then the last mile, which Jerome calls the most difficult bit of the river he knows: the current drives the skiff from bank to bank, turns it round, and keeps ending by aiming it at a college barge, with a good deal of bad language, and yet they get there. They spend two very pleasant days at Oxford, and Montmorency has eleven fights on the first day and fourteen on the second, evidently thinking he has got to heaven. The stretch of Thames through Oxford still carries boats, and locals call it the Isis.

Location precision: The book names no landing stage; the pin marks Folly Bridge, Oxford's boating hub.

Visitor guidance: Iffley Lock and the last mile of the river lie within the city; the stretch is called the Isis.