[The Woodman]

The images in Richards link are remarkable. It wasn't too long ago when a couple of WABbers got married in the Swan Hotel at Newby Bridge. It couldn't have happened today.

The images of the bridge at the Whitewater Hotel are incredible. Backbarrow Bridge used to carry the A590 main road bridge before the bypass was built. On the upstream elevation there is a flood level carved onto a stone with a date of, I think, 1875. That level is higher than the bridge arch and I've seen some pretty big floods going through that bridge and thought that level must have been quite a sight. What the area has just seen is the higest level ever recorded on the River Leven.

The Leven is the short river that drains Windermere and is joined by the Crake which drains Coniston Water before flowing into the north east corner of Morecambe Bay.

The floods coincided with neap tides fortunately. spring tides would have seen a huge area of flooding. The recent events have been described in the press today as of "Biblical proportions".