Kingston Bagpuize is clear of river and sea flooding, but a fair share of its postcodes still carry some flood risk. None of the village falls in the river flood zones. About one postcode in seven is rated high on at least one flood measure. Around a third show some lower-level risk. The rivers are out of the picture, and the rain still gets a say.
The Environment Agency's river-and-sea flood zones leave the village untouched. None of the area's postcodes fall in zone 3, the highest-probability band, and none fall in zone 2, the medium-probability fringe drawn beyond it. The old parish once ran in a strip from the River Thames in the north to the River Ock in the south, and the houses ended up at a distance from both.
Rivers are only one way in, and the flood zones are silent on rain that falls on the village and has nowhere to go. Surface-water risk is mapped separately, and the risk that does show up in Kingston Bagpuize comes through those other measures, which is why the rest of this answer looks different from the paragraph above.
The Environment Agency's climate-adjusted flood zone, which redraws the river and sea zones for a wetter future, covers none of the area's postcodes either. On the river side, the forward look matches the present one.
For insurance, a home outside the river zones starts from a better place than one inside them. Insurers price surface-water risk too, though, and they price it at the address, so a house on a postcode flagged high may get a different quote from one a few streets away in the same village. Putting the exact address into the Environment Agency's long-term flood risk service shows its surface-water rating before any money changes hands, and an early insurance quote on the same address tells you what that rating costs.
Across the village's 92 postcodes, about 15% are rated high on at least one flood measure, about 19% medium and about 33% low. Those shares count a postcode if any one of several measures flags it, surface water included, so they capture more than the river-and-sea zones can. "Outside the flood zone" is true for every house in Kingston Bagpuize, and it only covers the rivers.
The Environment Agency's modelled flood extents put none of the area's 93 postcodes inside a high-risk extent, either undefended or behind a modelled defence. There are no river defences here to argue about, because the model draws no river water near enough to need them. That is a statement about the model's river extents, and it has nothing to say about a blocked drain in a downpour.
The nearest tide gauge is at Portsmouth, where sea level rose by about 2 millimetres a year over the record from 1962 to 2023. That was measured on the south coast, a long way from a village in the middle of Oxfordshire, and it is the least relevant number on this page.
The Environment Agency records no historic flooding across the area's postcodes. That is a good sign, but it covers only the floods that got written down. A flooded garden that never made a report won't show up in it.
Flood risk is one of Kingston Bagpuize's weaker points. The rivers stay away, but the surface-water picture is mixed enough that each address needs checking on its own.