A Suffolk pub has been awarded £2,500 from a government-backed grant fund to help with the aftermath of the tidal surge a year ago this month.

Teresa and Garry Cook, landlords at The Crown Inn at Snape, have been able to use the money from the Business Flood Support Fund to build up protection around the fields of the property, and to pay for new lawnmowers, and picnic benches for the pub garden.

The cash also helped cover the cost of replacing turkeys they lost in the flooding.

On the night of the floods, the staff at the pub worked hard to save the animals at the property – including pigs, sheep, goats, ducks, chickens, geese and turkeys. The turkeys were given straw bales to sit on inside the barn, but the water rose too high.

Mrs Cook said it was the emotional impact of losing the animals which was hardest to deal with.

She said: “After the flooding it was such an awful sight and it was devastating to find the turkeys and other animals dead.

“On the Saturday morning I couldn’t hear them in the barn like I normally could. That’s when I knew they hadn’t made it. Five of the turkeys were lucky to survive, along with a couple of the geese and chickens and I let them run around inside the pub because I felt so sorry for them.”

Mr Cook added: “The impact of it all doesn’t sink in straight away.

“The floods had such a big impact on the whole of the pub including the fields surrounding the pub where we keep our pigs and sheep, the garden and the building itself.”

The couple who have been running the Adnams-owned pub for the last eight years had to cancel Christmas last year but are fully booked for Christmas Day this time and nearly full for both Boxing Day and New Year’s.

Mrs Cook said: “It’s been fantastic how the community has come together to support us. We can’t thank them enough.”