More Floods!

Another 38mm of rain today brought this plus some very tricky driving conditions. When WILL it end one asks? This view was taken on my way home from Alfoldean Bridge on the A29 again. This time the view is looking downstream. I realised that the water was right up and over the arch of the bridge.

If you were looking in this direction back in the 17th Century, you would almost certainly have had a reasonable view of Dedisham Forge in the distance. The River Arun was dammed to make a pond and would have been harnessed to turn a waterwheel that operated bellows to keep the forge operating. It would have worked up iron into tools, domestic utensils and even ornamental ironwork and possibly weaponry - whatever was required. One wonders if the river flooded then as bad as this, and what it would have done to the Forge and surrounding countryside and buildings, not to mention the roads which being muddy tracks were legendarily impassable in winter at the best of times historically.