Ceri Houlbrook’s Unlocking the Love-Lock: The History and Heritage of a Contemporary Custom is a well-organized and meticulous examination of the custom of affixing a padlock to a bridge or other object as a symbol of undying affection. The padlocks are generally inscribed with the initials of a pair of lovers and attached to a public structure such as a bridge. The key to the padlock is then thrown into the water flowing under the bridge. The permanency of the padlock and the disposal of the key underscore the enduring nature of the couple’s love for each other. The custom is frequently enacted by tourists, leaving padlocks in places to which they may never return. At the time of publication, Houlbrook had documented the custom in over 500 locations.
Houlbrook organizes her investigation of love-locks into seven chapters, with a separate introduction and “concluding thoughts” section. The introduction serves as a brief review of scholarship on the subject, situating Houlbrook’s fieldwork within this body of literature as well as that of contemporary vernacular assemblages. Here she also outlines her methodology, the key method being participant observation. Having observed love-lock practices in a number of countries, she acknowledges her European focus and notes the opportunity for research elsewhere. As a supplement to her geographically specific fieldwork, Houlbrook also engaged in online ethnography, scouring YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
Houlbrook, who identifies as an historian and a folklorist (and also holds a PhD in Archeology), begins her analysis with a diachronic overview of the custom’s development and geographical distribution. As folklorists, we know that the origins of an object, even more so a custom developed around a particular object, are generally obscure. Accordingly, debates about where and when the custom began are, as Houlbrook notes “often fruitless” (173). However, she clearly demonstrates that whatever its origins, the custom is now globally practiced.
The following chapters consider love-locks from various perspectives. Chapter 2 navigates the practice’s straddling of folk custom and popular culture. In chapter 3, Houlbrook takes a material culture approach to the practice as ritual, based on her inventory of love-locks affixed to the Oxford Road Bridge in Manchester, England from 2014 through 2019, a dataset of over 700 locks. An ethnographic examination that builds on interviews Houlbrook conducted with individuals who have engaged in the practice makes up chapter 4, while chapter 5 employs a semiotic reading of both padlocks and the structures to which they are affixed (primarily but not exclusively bridges). Chapter 6 looks at the commercialization of the phenomenon, including its harnessing for tourism.
The last chapter, chapter 7, focuses on the controversial aspects of the custom, including the locks’ connection to ideas about heritage, popular culture, tourism (in that it is not a “local” custom being enacted or imitated, but one imposed largely by tourists), environmental concerns, and deleterious impacts on supporting structures. As Houlbrook ably demonstrates, love-lock assemblages are both “hugely popular” and “hugely unpopular, and contestations persist” (175). Detractors consider them an example of “ritual litter” (151).
Houlbrook concludes the book with a case study detailing the custom’s inclusion in the 2010 Ontario (Canada) Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), an exam that must be passed in order for students to obtain their Secondary School Diploma. She finds the appearance of the custom in a literacy test telling. The popularity of love-lock customs and their spread around the globe, both on the ground and in a variety of mass and social media, offers an opportunity to consider a number of issues: “What is vandalism? What is beauty? What is culture? What is worth saving for future generations? And who gets to decide?” (175).
This succinct, yet richly detailed examination of contemporary love-lock customs will be of great interest to folklorists and other material culture scholars, as well as those interested in heritage and tourism from a folkloristic perspective. Houlbrook’s writing is accessible and engaging, rendering the book an excellent choice for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in these areas. In many ways, it is also an excellent example of how to structure a wide-ranging research project across geographical and linguistic borders, as well as both traditional fieldwork and online ethnography. In fact, it is further research on love-locks that Houlbrook seeks to inspire. As she writes, “it is with hope that I appeal to fellow researchers worldwide — be you folklorists, archeologists, ethnographers, historians, geographers or heritage specialists — to either begin or continue metaphorically unlocking love-locks” (13).
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[Review length: 740 words • Review posted on September 25, 2023]