50 years ago our village was severely affected by the torrents of water that flooded houses and completely swept away the bridge.
There was a huge clear up afterwards and the Army put up a Bailey bridge to keep the road and village open.
Prince Philip made a visit by helicopter, landing in the Tipton St John Playing Fieldand visiting villagers to see and hear about the floods , oh .....and having a pint in The Golden Lion!
Two villagers describe what they remember from that July day and night.
" ...Cant remember exact date, but I know it was July. The rain was coming down in torrents and the first flood came down through the Village from the Goyle. This flooded all the houses through the village and caused a fair amount of water damage. We had been clearing up the mess from that in my brothers house and I also went and helped Mrs Blunn with the dress shop, she lost a lot of her stock because of it. When we had cleared up a lot of the mess, I went home to change and eat and then drove my Aunt’s car back down to the Village and parked it where I had been told to by the Station House, I was probably the last person to go over the old River Bridge. We were advised that there was going to be another wave of flooding and were trying to move furniture etc. upstairs at my brothers to save what we could from the next lot, even a washing machine. Chris and Jill lost a lot of their wedding presents in the flood. The next lot of water came down across the fields towards the back of the house. Apparently it had got blocked because of the hay in the fields. It came in a big wave and as it crashed into the back of the house the brick wall holding up the kitchenette caved in with a tremendous crash. Jill and I were on the stairs and Chris was in the room it came into and just managed to jump through the window before a rather large piano was washed across the room and jammed itself into the window. The water came into the house to a depth of about 4ft. We had to push open a door, behind which was floating a large settee and then open the window to see Chris outside in the water. He wanted us to get out in case of further collapse. We went through the window into the water and swam across the road, I could just touch the road in the middle, so it must have been about 5ft. John and Margaret Quaintance kindly took us in and made us dry and comfortable, their houses were up out of reach of the water. The houses through the village were uninhabitable for quite a while afterwards. Jill was introduced to the Duke of Edinburgh when he visited a few days later, he made a comment about “webbed feet” to her. Incidentally the car had floated from one end of the Station Yard to the other but started first time. We had to get back to Tipton Vale via Ottery. The Army eventually came and built a bailey bridge to join the Village together again."
Marilyn Berry
"We had torrential rain all day, the village had been flooded in the afternoon from the brooks. I went down to the village in the evening and the river was rising up making a huge noise, then the Mill stream started to come out. We walked back up the village as the water rose ending up at Potters Corner at about 1am. You could hear the football hut break up and then the bridge, the telephone box was getting submerged, bins and other bits were floating around"
Len Baker
Photos from Sidmouth Museum, Tipton Times and some private collections.
