At the time of writing it is shaping up to be a lovely summer, but when you read this, in the week of Henley Royal Regatta, it may be a different story — in which case an exhibition at the town’s River and Rowing Museum has some sterling advice for householders.

Sponsored by the Environment Agency (EA), Water, Water Everywhere uses photographs, film, models and artefacts to examine the history of flooding in Henley and the wider Thames valley, how flood risk is managed (an important part of the EA’s brief), and how factors such as building trends and climate change affect it.

An appeal in the Henley Standard for memories, and pictures, of people’s experiences in past floods resulted in some extraordinary contributions to the exhibition — for example, a photograph of ladies driving a military tank through high water in the streets of Maidenhead during the 1947 floods.

These were the most severe since those of 1894, when a water height equivalent to 1.75m above normal summer levels was recorded at Marlow Lock, and at Marsh (just up-river from Henley) a doctor who had been summoned to deliver a baby at the lock-keeper’s cottage had to climb in through the window.

The role of lock-keepers, with their on-the-spot availability and knowledge of local conditions, is a crucial one in managing the river, as the EA recognised when it abandoned its recent proposal to do without them.

A case at the exhibition commemorates an example of the service they give: it contains material relating to Peter Gough, a lock-keeper at Shiplake for nearly 30 years, who received a bravery award for rescuing someone from the river but died himself, in 1982, working on the weir in a flood.

In a film made for the exhibition we see interviews with local business people, from Hobbs’ boatyard for instance, talking about the impact of repeated flooding. There is advice about how to register for warnings from the EA if flood threatens, and what to include in an emergency kit.

You can also have a look at the new, more effective, replacements for sandbags, which take the form of clip-on seals for doors, and other leaky places such as airbricks. A large relief map shows flood risk over the whole Thames area. The other element of this exhibition concerns the wildlife and leisure aspects of the river. An ingenious ‘rota wall’ — colourful three-sided revolving columns — displays first a panorama of the river at Henley Bridge, then a guide to its mammals, invertebrates, fish and bird life, and finally snippets of information about it, such as the curious fact that in hot weather oxygen is ‘bubbled’ into the water to improve the environment for wildlife.

This exhibition is only a small part of what the museum has to offer.

The Rowing Gallery features a little of the ancient history of rowing — including a cross-section of an Athenian trireme (a warship with three decks of oarsmen) — and much about its development as a modern sport.

Visitors can see the winning craft from the first University Boat Race, held at Henley in 1829, when Oxford were victorious. She looks almost tubby compared to another prized competition boat, the ‘Sydney Four’, in which Sir Steve Redgrave won his fifth gold medal at the 2000 Olympics. He and his crew rowed her up the river to Henley to take her place in the museum.

Temporary exhibitions in this gallery focus on rowing clubs, one of them a centre of social life in Shanghai from 1863 to 1940, which had its own ‘Henli’, a resort 40 miles inland where regattas were held — and, much closer to home, Magdalen College Rowing Club. Oscar Wilde belonged to this club, but gave it up very swiftly, declaring that he couldn’t see the point of going backwards down to Iffley every evening.

A forthcoming display in this gallery will feature the Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) machine developed by Brookes University and its partners to enable paraplegic rowers to train for competition in adapted boats against able-bodied oarsmen/women. The Thames Gallery tells the story of the river from source to estuary. The museum identifies Kemble, near the Fosse Way in Gloucestershire, as the river’s origin.

You can see vessels used on the river, including Saxon and medieval log boats, a crazy Canadian canoe decorated with poker-work, a camping skiff, a punt, and John MacGregor’s Rob Roy, whose maiden voyage began on the Thames at Lambeth in 1865.

Visitors can explore the history of timber and grain-carrying by barge and listen to boat-builders talking about their work, or to recordings of sounds of the river and poetry inspired by it. An interactive How much water do you use in a day? feature explains the systems by which water is supplied and recycled.

Over the internal bridge (on which you can sit and enjoy John Piper’s Landscape of the Two Seasons, produced for the SS Oriana) is the local history gallery, where a rare find of coins from 50AD, discovered at nearby Badgemore, is on show.

Printed on one side only, they are made of gold, and were found buried in a hollow flint, stopped with clay, which preserved them astonishingly well for nearly 2,000 years. Also in this gallery is an 1874 steam boat Eva, built as a regatta launch for umpires, but so difficult to steer and stop that it had to be sold off.

In the next room there is an opportunity to see a 1698 painting by the Flemish artist Jan Siberechts, Henley from the Wargrave Road. Researchers working on this have helped substantially to fill out what is known of the 17th-century town.

Children, and nostalgic adults, will make a beeline for the Wind in the Willows exhibition downstairs, where 3D figures of Ratty, Mole, Badger and the rest, modelled on the Shepard illustrations, appear in scenes from the book, while personal audio guides retell the story. This is rather more charming, and rather less Disney, than it sounds.

Whatever the weather, you can spend a whole day pottering around this museum, and if the sun does shine you can take advantage of the café terrace, or better still, picnic on the riverbank.

River and Rowing Museum, Mill Meadows, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 1BF. Open daily, 10am-5.30pm (5pm in winter). Admission (ticket lasts for a year): adults, £7, children aged four and over/concs, £5, family of four, £20. ‘Water, water everywhere’ runs until June 2010. ‘Life by the water’, an exhibition by Henley Arts and Crafts Guild — runs until August 31. Funtime (gallery of activities for children) July 25-September 6.