FIRE, flood and tempest!

Older residents will remember the weekend in October 1961 when the bridge over the Tadburn in Botley Road became blocked and the water changed course to flow down Botley Road, Winchester Road, past the Plaza and then into The Hundred, returning to its natural course via Palmerston Street. 

In March 1940, another flood afflicted the Plaza. Unusually it was caused by water in the Canal, or Barge River as it was often known.

The bridge over this water in Winchester Road was long ago replaced by putting the water underground so that a continuous road surface could be constructed. The water surfaces in gardens of houses in Southampton Road.

What had happened was that there had been heavy rain, following a dreadful winter with much snow.

Daily Echo: Green goddess (Army fire appliance) helping with the flood in Botley Road, October 1960

The canal overflowed and on occasion water got into the Plaza, flooding the boiler room, attendants’ cloakroom and part of the auditorium.

In mid-March the flood was worse than ever. The Romsey Advertiser reporter wrote that ‘water rushed in a torrent along the cinema drive and out into the road and the road itself was flooded to some width right down beyond Plaza Parade.’

With the aid of an artificial dam, the water was marshalled back to a manhole and thence to the river below the blocked point.

When the water level subsided somewhat, the cause of the blockage was tackled. Work men made a hole in the concrete where the blockage was thought to have occurred and set to work to remove the items that were causing the trouble.

These included ‘long planks and various other pieces of timber, to say nothing of oil drums and cans, and the block was made complete with quantities of river weed.’ Once this material was removed the water level dropped by several feet in a very short space of time.

When the Romsey and District Society restarted its stream-cleaning activities early in the twenty-first century, we were appalled to find car tyres as well as many smaller items in the streams, but that is as nothing compared with those items blocking the Canal by the Plaza. However this story shows the importance of the regular cleaning of streams across the town.

How sad that people use our waterways as waste depositories, and that is before I comment upon the activities, or lack thereof, of Southern Water.