A bend 1000 yards (900 metres) upstream of the lock, Silvery Sands, hosts Staines Regatta in the sport of rowing annually.

The main weir was built in 1846 when positioned below the offtake of the Abbey River, a medieval-established leat and so sited for the benefit of watermill power; the grain mills were by the end of that century superseded by large industrial granaries.

For a few years the leat was sourced above the main weir thus increasing the flooding of Laleham Burway and other fields of northern Chertsey; its shallow course has banks without bundings and few sluices.

The lock is against the left bank marking the Church parish medieval border of Laleham and Staines upon Thames in Surrey since at least the Norman Conquest.

Below the town's rowing club on the Egham side, Staines Regatta takes place at Silvery Sands 1000 yards (900 metres) above the lock in July.