A-Z Challenge 2018 - British Rivers: 'V' Valency

I studied chemistry at university and thought I had learnt a lot about valency.

I had never heard of the North Cornish village of Boscastle but like many I was shocked to see the TV news in August 2004.

Boscastle Harbour

This photo was taken in April 2004. In it you can see the steep sides of the Valency valley. The river itself is very short - c.5 miles. It has many tributaries, including a very short River Jordan (not one of those in my 'J' post) which joins the Valency just above Bocastle.

In its wooded stretches the Valency looks very mild.

River Valency at New Mills

After several days of heavy rain in August 2004 and 24 hours in which a month's rain came down, the Valency turned into a raging torrent which caused extensive structural damage in Boscastle. Cars were washed away and people trapped in their houses until rescued by helicopters.

The harbour was protected by two stone walls erected by Sir Richard Grenville in 1584. I assume that these are those in the first photo above.

Protected from the Atlantic Ocean by these walls, Boscastle harbour was unprotected from what became the raging Valency.

There are a number of videos on YouTube which show the Boscastle floods if you wish to get an idea about how bad the conditions were.

Photo attributions:

• Boscastle Harbour: 14 April 2004 by JUweL - CC BY-SA 3.0 Licence
• River Valency at New Mills: 18 May 2007 by Jan Coupland ex geography.org.uk - CC BY-SA 2.0 Licence

Yarm Town Hall - 300th Anniversary

© Ian Britton - www.freephoto.com - Creative Commons Licence

The Town Hall in the middle of Yarm High Street was erected in 1710 by the Lord of the Manor as a Court House in place of a ruinous Tollbooth. Later used by local magistrates for petty sessions it is now the meeting place of the parish council.

The Dutch style brick building is square in plan and two stories high, with a pyramidical, red-tiled roof surmounted by a wooden clock-and-bell turret covered by a leaded cupola carrying a weather vane.

Originally it had two open arches on each side of the ground floor and stairs leading to the room above, now used by the parish council. Two arches were bricked up in 1888 when a room was made to house the town weighing machine.

On the south face marked stones show the heights reached by the floods of 1771 and 1881; plaques commemorate the local members of the first railway committee and the Yarm men in the Boer War.

Bottom plague shows height of floods

To commemorate the anniversary pictures of historic Yarm have been added to the ‘alcoves’ and end walls of the building. These pictures include Yarm Fair from earlier years, True Lovers Walk and the railway viaduct. On the north side the centre of the picture is hidden by a letter box. Yorkshire’s white rose flag flutters from the pole at the right even although strictly the town is not in Yorkshire any more.

The alarum bell which once hung above the clock used to be rung to warn of fires and floods. Dated 1690 it is inscribed:

"Si Deus pro nobis ouis contra nos." (If God is for Us, who is against us?)