The lock marks the downstream end of the New Cut, a meander cutoff built in 1822 by the Thames Navigation Commissioners which created Ham Island.

In 1871 the lock cut bridge was rebuilt with the right reserved to lay sewage pipes across it.

Then Albert Bridge crosses to Datchet including at its lowest point, the thin island of Sumptermead Ait.

The railway bridge has a great brick pier in Black Potts Ait, behind which the Jubilee River rejoins the Thames.

The area known as Black Potts up to Romney Island is an attraction where those fishing have included Isaak Walton who wrote a major work which promoted angling and Charles II in the century before.