Pyons & Westhope

Water Cause - By now the work to prevent flooding at the Nags Head turn should have been completed,and a start made at Brookside. This is only the latest attempt to defeat nature at the northern end of the village. For centuries it must have been a quagmire par excellence. Glatt Lane descended to stream level, meeting the brook heading off in the vicinity of the Parish Hall, on its way to feed the Kinford brook and power the mill. The undiverted stream made its way direct to Kinford but not before becoming a ford along the main road as far as the White House;stepping stones were kindly provided. Then came the car and two bridges were rapidly built, one of which is now somewhere beneath the road, the other the source of many of the current problems, the stepping stones were probably removed at this point,shortly after the first car to visit the village left its sump outside the old forge. The next car must have been that of Alfred Watkins of the Flour Mill in Hereford, miller, author, inventor, in his tiller-steered machine. Invariably help was needed from the local car spotters to push-start Watkins out of the village. Those were the days when to note a number plate was a feat in itself and roads by no means possessed the surfaces we are accustomed to today. So it will be goodbye to our floods but just in case keep the sand bags handy.