The Leigh Flood Storage Area

[poliphilo]

For once I'm not up there looking down but down here looking up.

This is the Tonbridge By-pass Flyover, opened in 1971 by Ted Heath, "the Prime Minister of the day". It carries the A 21 (the London to Hastings road) across the Medway at the Leigh Flood Storage area- a section of the valley traversed by a steep sloping bank that guards Tonbridge against flooding when the river gets full. The bank is about 20 feet high and covered in grass and wildflowers and would be great for children to roll down. There was a man cutting it with a remotely controlled mower when I went through. I guess there are just two ways of doing that job safely and this is one. The other would be to use scythes.

Here's a view of the bank at the point where it's intersected by the dam that controls the flow of the river. OK, it doesn't look that steep, but I assure you that when you're walking down it you do so at a shuffle, taking very small cautious steps.