Four hundred years ago, a disaster hit the southwest of the country as a huge surge of water gushed up the Bristol Channel killing 2,000 people. Eyewitness accounts of the great flood of 30 January 1607 tell of 'huge and mighty hills of water' advancing at a speed 'faster than a greyhound can run' and only receding 10 days later. The flood reached a speed of 30mph and a height of 25ft. It swept inland in the Bristol area, Somerset, north Devon, Pembrokeshire, Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and Cardiff.