Stoke St Gregory History Pages
Floods 2014
Ten years on. Have you any memories and photos of the floods of 2012 - 2014? If so please send them to gregorystoke@aol.com In the meantime here are a few snippets.
In this picture of a flooded Moorland, if you zoom in to the lane opposite the Church, near the end you will see a Dam built in the road. One of the local residents had a mini digger and started to pull mud out of the ditch going along the road, to start the structure. He then walked through the floods to the Village Hall where the Council workers were gathered. One of the digger drivers offered to help, and they kept working for hours. Police appeared and told them they had to stop, and they said 'ok we won't be much longer' but they kept going until several police arrived to stop them. They started early again the next morning, and as you can see, all of the houses above that point were saved.
On Tuesday, February 4, 2014, Charles, then Prince of Wales visited the village and spent some time in the Williams Hall talking to local farmers. Up until the day before there had been no access to the hall, as the bottom of Dark Lane was flooded. Miraculously, two machines appeared and cleared the drain that takes the water across to West Sedgemoor. Here are a couple more photos.
FOOTNOTE: The name Charles is derived from the Saxon word Ceorl (pronounced Churl). The Ceorl was a free man, so one up the scale from the serfs, but he did not own any land. So our Charles and his family have done quite well for themselves. The area of Stoke known as Churley (up beyond Woodhill Terrace) is literally the clearing in the wood where the Ceorls live.