Not from rivers or the sea, no. Not one postcode in the village sits in a river-and-sea flood zone. Nothing has been recorded flooding here. What it does have is surface water, which is the flooding nobody insures against properly because nobody expects it. The village is on a hill seven miles from Bristol, and the water it needs to worry about is the water falling on it rather than the water coming at it.
The Environment Agency's mapping of river and sea flood risk puts none of Almondsbury in either band. Zero percent of postcodes fall in flood zone three, the higher-probability band, and zero percent in flood zone two, which is the additional medium-probability fringe sitting outside zone three rather than containing it. Both being zero is not a rounding artefact. There is simply no watercourse of consequence running through the village, and the estuary is over five kilometres away at the nearest point.
Surface water is the whole story here, and it tells a different one. Across the village's 73 postcodes, around 12% carry a high rating on at least one flood indicator, roughly 16% a medium rating, and about 36% a low one. Those bands fold surface water in alongside rivers and sea, so they overlap with the zone figures rather than adding to them, and given the zone figures are zero, what remains is rainfall, drainage and the shape of the ground. A village built on a slope next to a motorway interchange has a certain amount of hard surface and a certain amount of runoff, and the mapping reflects that.
The climate-adjusted flood zone, which models what the river-and-sea picture looks like with future sea level and rainfall allowances applied, also covers zero percent of the village. The forward look is as clean as the current one.
For insurance, this is a comfortable position rather than a free pass. A property with no river or sea zone designation should attract standard cover without the flood loading that hits properties near watercourses. Surface-water risk is less visible to underwriters but does show up in claims history, so the practical step is checking the individual address rather than trusting the village-wide picture. Almondsbury as a whole is low risk. A specific house at the bottom of a slope with a blocked gully is a separate question.
On defences, the modelled flood extents show zero percent of postcodes in a high-risk extent, defended or undefended. There is nothing here for a defence to stand in front of, which is a better outcome than having a defence. Where a place does carry a defended designation, it means a defence exists in the model, not that the house behind it is safe. That distinction does not arise in Almondsbury because neither figure applies.
Every postcode in the village falls under a shoreline management plan, and the stated policy across the twenty, fifty and hundred year horizons is to hold the line, meaning the intention is to maintain existing coastal defences at their current position. A policy is an intention rather than a guarantee, and it is a statement about the wider coast rather than about this village, which sits about five and a half kilometres from the nearest coastline at its closest point and roughly six and a half at the median.
The nearest long-record tide gauge, at Portsmouth, has measured sea level rising at about 2 millimetres a year across its record from 1962 to 2023. That is a measured historic rate at a distant gauge, not a forecast, and given Almondsbury's distance inland and elevation, it is context rather than a threat.
There is no recorded historic flooding anywhere in the village. That is genuinely reassuring, and it is the strongest single fact in this section. It is not proof that nothing has ever happened, since records are incomplete and older events go undocumented, but a clean record across every postcode is the outcome you want to see.
Flood risk here is middling rather than good, and the reason is entirely surface water. The rivers and the sea leave Almondsbury alone, but roughly one postcode in eight still carries a high rating on some indicator, so check the address before you assume the village-wide picture applies to your gutters.