Literature and The Media
Sandford Lasher and its dangers are described in chapter 18 of Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (1889).
The pool under Sandford lasher, just behind the lock, is a very good place to drown yourself in. The undercurrent is terribly strong, and if you once get down into it you are all right. An obelisk marks the spot where two men have already been drowned, while bathing there; and the steps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving-board by young men now who wish to see if the place really IS dangerous.
Jerome was a close personal friend of J.M. Barrie, and so probably knew Michael Llewelyn Davies.
It is also mentioned in The Dictionary of the Thames by Charles Dickens, Jr..
It is notorious to all rowing men and habitue's of the river that Sandford Lasher has almost yearly demanded its tale of victims and it is almost inconceivable that people will continue year after year to tempt fate in this and other equally dangerous places
In Tom Brown at Oxford, by Thomas Hughes, first published in 1861, the eponymous, principal character has a narrow escape after accidentally rowing a skiff over the weir and into the lasher. Sandford lock is briefly mentioned in the The Four Feathers by A.E.W. Mason (1902). It is also briefly mentioned in the poem The Burden of Itys by Oscar Wilde.
Read more about this topic: Sandford Lock
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