River Brede rising...

IMPORTED POST FROM OLD BLOG. ORIGINAL DATE: 12/01/2008

One of the three rivers in Rye is the Brede, which flows through a lock and sluice, used to keep the high tide out and control the river level. We live near it, so after all the rain this week, I thought it would be interesting to go down at high tide, when the lock is shut. This keeps the tide out, but also means the flow coming down the river simply piles up until the tide drops. Here's the the lock:


As you can see, the tide (on the right) is higher than the river. The boat had drifted in there - I mentioned it to an environment agency guy I happened to see, but it wasn't theirs, and apparently this wasn't the first time it had been seen drifting down the river...

Once the tide started to fall, the gates opened, giving a strong flow through them:




Here's a few pictures of the river as normal, and in flood:









We've heard it can actually get a lot higher than this...

These guys didn't seem to mind though. Look out for one Mallard chasing another!