The weather conditions in Swindon on Friday 20th July were sufficient to cause a certain amount of disruption at the National Monuments Record Centre. Staff from some areas of the town dodged home through grid-locked traffic to salvage possessions from rising flood waters. Others on trains returning from London found themselves having to display an unexpected degree of resourcefulness to return to their homes with one being marooned as far afield as Oxford, where they were obliged to secure hotel accommodation. This has, however, prompted us to conduct an impromptu survey of those HERs who have experienced the effects of flooding in the recent months. The results, in no particular order and with apologies for paraphrasing of reports, were as follows:
Gloucestershire
Unquestionably the worst affected organisation. No direct contact with their office in Shire Hall was possible on 24th July but reports suggest that they are not operational at present and without power, water and telephones. There is no indication as to how long it will be before normal service is resumed.
Jan Wills reported on the afternoon of 24th July that "Gloucestershire Archaeology Service is indeed, like the rest of the County Council, out of action for the time being. Our offices in Gloucester are without power and water and the County Council is focused on dealing with the dire conditions in the north of the county. I don’t know how long this will continue but water supplies are not expected to be re-connected until the end of the week at the earliest – and there is more rain to come. "
Reports on 1 August suggest that the office is now working as usual. A services have been restored although the water presently 'on-tap' is still not drinkable.
Gloucester City
Their offices are situated at a slightly more elevated position than those of the County Council and have encountered fewer problems. That said electricity returned only this morning (24-07-07) and water supplies will possibly not be resumed until the end of the week. A decision will be made later today as to whether it will be possible to keep the office open during the next few days.
More recent reports (27-07-07) suggest that the office is now opening on a very restricted basis between 8am and 10am. Water supplies are unlikely to be restored now before the end of next week. They hope to restore their service gradually after this time but the situation still remains uncertain.
Reports on 01-08-07 confirm that a normal service has now been resumed at the office. As with Gloucestershire the tap water is still not drinkable but the morale boosting effects of being able to flush a toilet should not be underestimated.
Herefordshire
Herefordshire have experienced no direct problems although the railway line between the city and Worcester has been closed and is unlikely to re-open until August 6th.
Worcestershire
The HER operated on a skeleton staff yesterday (23-07-07) (limited to those who could walk to the offices). Normal service has now been resumed, however, and things are functioning pretty much as usual.
Worcester City
Tuesday 24th July: Here staff are looking out over a flooded car park from the comparative security of a first floor office. Whilst the situation over the week-end was quite bad most things had returned to normal by Monday (23-07-07). The bridge across the Severn in the city centre has now been re-opened but the cricket ground (flooded for the second time this summer) is unlikely to see play during July-August. It seems probable that recent events will necessitate some strategic thinking at the planning level regarding flood defences which may impact on the workload of the HER in the near future.
South Yorkshire
Staff coped with the floods in Sheffield late last month with the stoicism customary to Yorkshire folk. Business as usual was maintained throughout. Being on the 5th floor they were, happily, insulated from the worst effects of the inundation. In terms of the historic environment of the area a number of sites, bridges in particular, have incurred some form of damage, one bridge having been destroyed completely. There was also significant flooding in the surrounding tributary valleys and the position of many industrial sites, which employed rivers as motive power, will obviously have made them vulnerable. No coherent attempt has been possible to assess the situation, however, and it seems likely that information on this subject will only trickle through gradually.
Humber
Also involved in the problems during late June, the road outside The Old School was flooded and a leak appeared in the roof. No damage resulted, however. The office shut early on the afternoon of Monday 25th June and only one person was able to make it to work on the following day. Only one day’s work was lost but the situation was quite unsettling to those who experienced it since homes lost both phone and e-mail connections and the mobile phone system quickly collapsed under the weight of calls.
In the longer term two issues have emerged: HER staff (as Council employees) were placed on standby for a week during the emergency. In the event they were not called upon. However, despite being keen to afford any assistance that they could, they felt that, since there were only two of them, their resources were limited and that the HER would have had to have ceased work completely had their presence been required elsewhere. Secondly the results of a number of evaluations and watching briefs have been affected by water-logging. It seems likely that this will have an impact on the record for a little time to come.
North Lincolnshire
The North Lincolnshire SMR was directly affected by the floods in June when the basement containing the council's main servers and telecommunications equipment was flooded to a depth of 5 feet. Luckily the SMR is based in the museum which remained dry. But they were without e-mail, internet and telephone facilities for two and a half weeks, severely hampering communications and work.
Compiled by Nick Davis, English Heritage, with thanks to the HERs who provided the information.