The London Floods Of 1903

By Paul Homewood 

  

Wanstead Meteo has some more detail on the floods which hit London in June 1903, which I referred to earlier:

 

 

 

June deluge that created Redbridge-on-Sea

 

 

It was the summer when the ‘sea’ came to Redbridge.  A record-breaking 59-hour deluge in the middle of June 1903 left vast swaths of the borough inundated. But this was no thundery downpour. All across London and the South East record rainfall rates and totals were set, many of which still stand 111 years later.

 

The author of this postcard wrote the following:
“Just sending you a few postcards to let you see what a plight we have been in Ilford. This view is the River Roding from the bridge. This was a large green field now it is like a large river but glad to say it has subsided a little of course. You will have read it in the papers I have sent you.”

 

Images of the flooding were captured by Watson Hornby, an amateur photographer and artist, who traded at 7 Cranbrook Road, Ilford. This terrace of houses in Wanstead Park Road, which backs on to the River Roding, were also flooded out. The postcard was written on July 1st, 1903

 

 

According to one local historian the fields between Wanstead Park and Ilford – as far as Uphall Road – were like an open sea and the railway track at Seven Kings resembled a shallow river.

 

Read the rest here.

 

There is also some good stuff on the London floods of 1809, when the River Lea was a mile wide here.