It has no name, but it has torn a bridge apart. “The brook” rises west of Lower Benefield, near Spring Wood. There, a dendritic network of tiny streams converges and flows to Sheepwalk Spinney, after which, for much of the year, the water disappears underground leaving the valley floor dry. Further downstream, around Brook Farm on the eastern side of Lower Benefield, it re-emerges as a wriggly stream that runs all year round. After winding south of Glapthorn, the brook unites with the broad, slow-flowing river Nene near Cotterstock.
Thunderstorms with torrential rain formed flowing sheets of brown water on the roads and saturated the valley this week. Then another storm, and the brook springs into vigorous life, water erupting overground and rising rapidly. Quickly, the stretch upstream of Lower Benefield and the A427 transforms from a trickle between stickleback-occupied pools (we get the three-spined and the scarcer nine-spined) into a tumultuous force; pouring across fields and impelling through spinneys.
The A427 is the first major obstacle, the coffee-coloured water swells 8ft deep, driving through the railings and over the top of the road. It makes short work of the bridge, tearing apart the projecting wall on the upstream side and hefting loaf-sized stones across the road: the downstream brick fascia is simply ripped off.
The next morning, the brook is back in its bed but a vast medley of big slugs and dainty snails, unwilling flood refugees, are listlessly hauling themselves out of a back eddy.
The brook has flooded over the road a few times in recent years, but this is the first time in the memory of long-term inhabitants that it has risen so high and caused such havoc.
In making inquiries about the water course, I was astonished to discover that it has no name: it is unlabelled on maps, and locals universally refer to it as “the brook”. It is a prominent feature, stitched through 11km of landscape, bearing water away and enticing aquatic wildlife up the valley. It feels insensitive that it has not been named.
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