Floods at Alfoldean Bridge, River Arun, Slinfold

Back to work and a hellish journey to and fro with too much traffic and hazardous with flooded areas of road. On my way home and with a dry and convenient layby to stop in, I was able to take some shots of the floods on the upper reaches of the River Arun. This view is looking upstream from the bridge and the actual river is to the left of the tree.

This crossing of the River Arun is very ancient as submerged under all the water you see would have been where the Roman Road, Stane Street crossed the river on a timber bridge. Back in the early 1930's, a local archaeologist claimed that he had found the remains of the timber piles of the Roman bridge. Back then, and it was summertime, there was a drought and the river was exceptionally low revealing these wooden remains. Stane Street was the main Roman route from London to the tribal capital of Chichester. To the right in the view in the fields stood a Mansio, a Roman equivalent of a pub crossed with a Travelodge of today. This was where travellers on the road could spend the night before resuming their journey. These roads were also used by the military, but less so in this area as the local Iron Age tribes were in close co-operation with the Romans and got on well with them so a military prescence was not as great as much further north and east.

I have kept basic weather records since 1983 and in 6 days we have had a total of 79mm which is a month's rainfall in just that short time. It is hardly surprising that there has been so much flooding.