Bottleneck!

River Eamont (Part 13)
 
Traffic
The picture of the pretty sandstone bridge over the Eamont that I blipped a few days ago did not tell the whole story. This is the other side.
 
The bridge has been an important crossing point of the River Eamont for centuries. Drovers and travellers used it. The first stagecoach, which made the journey from Carlisle to Kendal in 1763, used it (with an average speed of 5 miles an hour!). Eventually this main road north/south became the A6 and, hard to imagine now, until the northern part of the M6 was completed in 1971, all the traffic came this way
 
. . . and negotiated the narrow bridge. It was a notorious bottleneck and is still controlled by traffic lights, as can be seen here.
 
Floods
What you can also see is how the houses, many dating from the early 18th century, are built very close to the road. So we come to the other problem the river causes – flooding. Over the years there have been several episodes of flooding, the worst being in November 2009, when the situation was so bad that stranded residents had to be rescued by boat. I have added two photographs from this time to give an idea of what happened then, in this very spot. And those pictures were taken when the water had subsided and everyone had been rescued, so you can imagine what it had been like previously. It was very sad to drive past afterwards and see the state of the houses.