WHILE the glorious weather of the last three months may now be just a memory, the current wet spell is nothing compared with the weather that fell on the county 70 years ago.

John Hamilton of the Facebook page Lost Haddington got in touch with the Courier to highlight how the floods of 1948 would look in present-day Haddington.

He said: “Using the flood mark in the video-still as a reference, I got a friend who has access to a theodolite to use this and project this water level to other landmarks around the river and town centre.

“Robert Byers from Haddington Camera Club then used his photo editing skills and a photoshop ‘flood’ plug-in to reconstruct the photos.”

In August 1948, persistent heavy rainfall saw the county face its most serious flooding in history.

Although much of East Lothian was affected, Haddington took a major hit. High Street as far west as the Town House was under several feet of water which stretched to the gates of Amisfield Park, a distance of more than half a mile.

Distillery Park, the Nungate, Peffers Place and Brewery Park were similarly devastated.

The Biel Burn also flooded, submerging all the low-lying land north and west of West Barns.

The flood occurred as the culmination of a period of truly exceptional rainfall – 122 mm of rain fell between August 1 and 8, followed by 153 mm in the next five days.

The saturated ground then received a huge 139 mm of rain in the next 24 hours, bringing severe flooding across the county.

The Haddingtonshire Courier reported on “disastrous flooding without parallel in living memory – if not in history”.

In the August 20, 1948 edition of the Courier, “serious damage” was inflicted on the banks of the River Tyne while other streams burst their banks and “left destruction in their wake”.

It added: “So heavy was the flood of water that the streams made courses for themselves, with the result that many people were flooded out of house and home.

“One of the worst areas to suffer was Haddington, where a large number of people were rendered homeless, while shops and business premises were flooded to a depth of several feet.”

Meanwhile at West Barns, the Biel Burn overflowed, causing serious damage to houses and shops in the village; but fortunately “no loss of life is reported, although some people had narrow escapes, so suddenly did the water levels rise”.

The floods also caused serious damage to crops on farms close to the Tyne and extensive damage was also caused to the now-demolished New County Cinema on Hardgate.

Nungate residents who had been enjoying the evening’s film were instructed by cinema management to return home to avoid being cut off as water levels rapidly rose.

And slightly further afield, the electricity supply in Gifford and Saltoun was interrupted, and at the Maltings in Haddington the sub-station was completely swept away. It was anticipated it would take many months for the affected areas to return to normal, and calls for assistance to help with the recovery were issued.