Walham is a village in

Longford Longford () is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It has a population of 10,008 according to the 2016 census. It is the biggest town in the county and about one third of the county's population lives there. Longford lies at the meet ...

parish, north of

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

, England. It lies on the banks of the

River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

and north of the

A40 road A4 most often refers to: *A4 paper, a paper size defined by the ISO 216 standard, measuring 210 × 297 mm A4 and variants may also refer to: Science and mathematics * British NVC community A4 (''Hydrocharis morsus-ranae - Stratiotes aloide ...

A National Grid substation, providing power to half a million homes and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), is situated at Walham. The substation came to national prominence in July 2007, when it was threatened by a major

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

. The fire service and military stopped the flood waters two inches below the height at which the plant would flood. This struggle with nature was dubbed the "Battle for Walham" in national newspapers.

The village

The village is effectively a suburb of

, which is to its south.

Battle for Walham

The Battle for Walham was the fight by emergency services and the

Environment Agency The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...

to save the National Grid 400 kV substation at Walham. When the

River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

burst its banks during the Gloucestershire floods of 2007, the fire brigade, Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and the Environment Agency joined forces to save the threatened substation. The water came within two inches of overtopping (flooding) the substation controls before receding. The Environment Agency's Rivers and Coastal Group committee were unanimous in their decision to award the Chairman's Award prize jointly to the Environment Agency and Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue teams for their work to save Walham.

References

Villages in Gloucestershire {{Gloucestershire-geo-stub

The village

Battle for Walham

See also

References