History The floods of 2000

In the autumn and winter of 2000, we had an astonishing run of poor weather. We reckon that in the three months before Christmas 2000 we had just one day without rain. One night in November a section of the Horseshoe Pass, which is the northerly access to Llangollen, was swept away by a landslide caused by the torrential rain. It took some seven months to re-instate the road, and even now it is still single-lane only.

The River Dee which flows outside the Corn Mill is regulated by the reservoir at Bala, but by November this was full to its banks, and they had to open the gates to release the pressure to prevent the town of Bala from flooding. The Dee was in full spate for days and came to within six feet of the top of the arches of the bridge - a whole forty foot tree was washed away from the banks and swept down river, only to career into the end of our deck, where it wedged tight.

The river came within inches of flooding the decking, but in the end it abated. Actually, as part of the design process, Jerry and Graham had carefully researched the highest water level ever recorded, and built the pub comfortably above that point, so although the river was the highest it had been since the 1950’s, it didn’t get into the pub. We did get flooded, but strangely enough from the other direction. A stream had burst its banks further up the hill, flooded the town drainage system, and poured down the slope and in through our front door, which somewhat took us by surprise as we were looking the other way, literally. It’s the no-see-um’s that get you.