This film is part of Free

Flash Village

Flash in Staffordshire - the highest village in England and, potentially, the driest.

News 1981 3 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for Media Archive for Central England

Overview

Flash in Staffordshire not only claims to be the highest village above sea level in England but also, in 1981, it was said to be the only village without mains water. On a wintry December day John Swallow finds out how the villagers are coping with fetching water from the well, with one local woman admitting to having never used a tap. To make the isolation in the Staffordshire Moorlands feel even more acute we also discover that it's been fifteen years since the last bus ran.

Flash is also likely to be the highest village in Britain as well as England, a claim that was verified by the Ordnance Survey. This assertion was disputed by residents of Wanlockhead in Dumfries though.