At its peak on Sunday (January 5) the level of the River Kennet was still well below the top of the new flood defences at Kennet Place in Marlborough – and by Monday morning it was falling back. The footpath through Coopers Meadow was still closed.
Flood water still lay along the lower part of Priory Gardens. At least one resident of Town Mill had come out twice during Sunday evening to make sure the river’s level was not endangering the houses.
As the Environment Agency’s chart of the automatically measured levels for the Kennet at Marlborough for the peak 48-hour period shows, the level came pretty close to the ‘Highest Recent’ level of 0.69 metres on 17 March 2008. By 08.45 am on Monday morning the level was back down to 0.52 metres.
The Environment Agency’s judgment is that ‘typical levels’ for the river are between 0.04 and 0.37 metres. And in recent months there have been scares that the River was drying up completely with large sections of the upper river bed quite dry and bereft of life.
One such dry stretch was at Manton – which on Monday showed considerable flooding both up river toward Manton Mill and down river towards the town.
There was also extensive flooding along the stretch below Axford and east of Mildenhall the river was within inches of the top of its banks. (All photos taken before 10.00am Monday, 6 January 2014. Click to enlarge.)
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