The borough has suffered from flooding over the years sometimes with disastrous consequences for home owners and businesses. The floods of 1932 saw 4 – 5 ft of water gush into Nuneaton Town Centre from the River Anker is probably most remembered, more recently there were 3ft floods in Delaware Street in Bedworth in 2018.
Its interesting to note that Nuneaton was originally called Ea-ton which meant Water Town.
The River Anker rises close to Wolvey, it becomes a main river at Stretton Baskerville and forms the barrier between Rugby and Nuneaton and Bedworth. Flood relief works in 1976 following bad flooding in 1968 created two channels. The main channel passes through Nuneaton Town Centre and the other goes through the north of the town before joining together again at Weddington. It proceeds to Atherstone where it reaches the River Sence.
Whilst the River has been destructive in the past, it was a key reason for people to chose to settle in the area. The original town of Nuneaton grew along its banks. The Anker was made famous by poet Michael Drayton in the fifteenth century. He wrote about the River both in his Polyoblion and in his sonnet, Clear Anker,
“Clear Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore
My soul-shrined saint, my fair Idea, lies,
O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore
The crystal stream refined by her eyes,
where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the Spring
Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers,”
Michael Drayton
Behind the Scenes at Nuneaton Museum 