The Thames Flood Barries has been closed this morning following some extremely high tides along the river.

In Twickenham and Richmond last night local people reported seeing unusually high tides, with one man even paddling from Church Lane to Orleans House in his canoe.

A tweet from Environment Agency worker Alan, who works as a flood forecaster at the barries said: "The Thames Barrier is closing this morning.

"A high tide is forecast and combined with high river flows, the decision has been made to operate from around 10.40 this morning. This will be our 209th Flood Defence Closure, the first of this flood season."

The Thames Barrier is one of the largest movable flood barriers in the world and is controlled by the Environment Agency.

Local residents of Twickenham and Richmond took to social media site X (formerly known as Twitter), yesterday to showcase how high the tides were.

@KaptainKwack, who regularly posts videos of him canoing around Twickenham said that it was the first time he had seen the water go abvoe the 'Riverside' street sign.

He also shared a video of him canoeing through the flooded riverside.

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