LUDLOW has again seen flooding of low-lying areas near the river.

For the third time is as many months concerns were raised along with river levels following heavy rainfall.

The latest scare came over the weekend before Christmas.

In the latest incident the horseshoe island in the river almost disappeared under the rising water.

The worst flooding by a long way in recent years was in 2007 when a house was so badly damaged that it had to be demolished, the Burway Bridge was washed away, and a gas main was ruptured.

After that a lot of work was done to limit the likely damage of a similar flood in the future.

The bridge was replaced with one that is capable of taking much more water flowing underneath it.

Debris in the rivers Corve and Teme that would restrict the flow of water has been removed and monitoring has been improved.

Since 2007 there were high river levels in 2012 and then in January 2013, in February 2014, March 2018 and then in October, November and December last year.

But flooding has been a feature of life in low-lying areas of Ludlow for longer than anyone alive today can remember.

In June 1924 the Corve broke its banks and flooded. Photographs show very high-water levels for both the Teme and the Corve, and Lower Corve Street may have been 0.5 metres higher, and the Teme at Ludford Bridge may have been one metre higher than in the floods of 2007.

And this was apparently “not one of the worst years” for flooding in Ludlow

Following the very heavy winter snowfalls of January and February 1947, one of the severest floods ever of the Teme was in March of that year, which has been documented dramatically on video. In October 1987 the fields off Linney and the recreation ground were flooded by water from the Corve. Local historian David Lloyd’s photograph collection shows a flood zone around the Corve similar to the flood of 2007.