Eynsford carries a moderate flood risk, and it is concentrated in a small part of the village. Almost none of the village falls in the worst river flood zone. About one postcode in ten rates high on at least one flood measure. A handful of properties carry most of the risk. The village takes its name from a river crossing, and the risk sits along that river.
On the Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood map, about 4% of Eynsford's postcodes fall in Flood Zone 2, the medium-probability band, and none fall in Flood Zone 3, the high-probability band. The two zones do not overlap. Zone 2 is the fringe beyond Zone 3, so here it is the only band with any postcodes in it. The agency has two recorded floods for the area, the latest in September 1968, when the main river overflowed its channel and no raised defences stood in the way. A village with a water mill, a mill house and a medieval bridge in its listed buildings grew up on the river, and the risk sits along the same line.
Surface water, the flooding that comes from heavy rain with nowhere to drain, has no separate share in the Environment Agency figures held for Eynsford. It is counted only inside the postcode measure set out below.
The Environment Agency's climate-adjusted flood zone, which redraws the map for a wetter future, puts about 4% of Eynsford's postcodes inside it. That is the same small fringe as today, and it is a modelled projection.
Insurance follows the river. A home on the riverside fringe can cost more to cover, or come with a higher excess, while a house further up the hill should be insured like anywhere else. Ask the seller for the current buildings policy and its renewal terms, because a home that has needed a specialist insurer will show it there first.
Taking every flood measure together, rivers, sea and surface water included, about 10% of Eynsford's postcodes rate high on at least one, another 10% medium and about 19% low. A postcode only has to fail one test to count. That makes this the broadest net on the page, and it explains why it catches more postcodes than the river zones do.
Counting homes is more useful than counting postcodes. The Environment Agency's rivers-and-sea mapping lists six Eynsford postcodes with some risk, covering 267 properties. Of those, 15 properties are at high risk, 10 at medium and 65 at low, and five of the high-risk properties are homes. Postcodes with no risk at all are left off that list entirely, so the 267 is the exposed part of the village and not the whole of it.
The agency's modelled flood extents put none of Eynsford's postcodes in a high-risk area, defended or undefended, and about 2% in a low-risk area with no defence in the model. A "defended" label would only mean a defence appears in the model, never that a house stays dry. Here nothing in the model sits between the river and the low-lying fringe.
The nearest tide gauge to Eynsford is at Dover, which recorded sea level rising about 2.2 millimetres a year between 1961 and 2010. That is a coastal measurement from a gauge a long way from this inland valley, and it says little about the risk here.
Flood risk in Eynsford is middling. Most of the village is dry, and a narrow strip by the river is not.