Open House 6

Let's round off Open House with yesterday's final four visits. Apologies, it might take me a while to finish these off. Open House: Richmond Lock Building (Surrey Side) (Richmond) The Weired One Open House: The Lock House, Richmond Lock & Weir (Twickenham) The Thin One Sometimes spaces on heavily booked tours suddenly appear overnight, even on the day of the opening, thus I grabbed this one and changed my plans for the day. Richmond is the last lock on the Thames if heading downstream, and the only one owned and operated by the Port of London Authority. It was opened in 1894 to solve a problem created 60 years earlier when the old London Bridge was demolished, speeding up the flow of the river. [Explanation of navigational issue, legal stature, how it works, blimey isn't it gorgeous, finish this later] The footbridge across the top opens daily but you can't walk underneath, not unless you're a PLA employee. For Open House it was possible to do this on both banks because each end of…