Gents Mag 1751 p.200
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introduction | ||
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list, 3rd qtr 18th century | ||
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Gentleman's Magazine 1751 p.200
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flood, 1749 St John's in the Vale |
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Floods, St John's in the
Vale
... ... Account of a surprising Inundation in the Valley of St John's near Keswick in Cumberland. (See Map in this Mag.) ON the 22d of August 1749, there was the most terrible thunder, and incessant lightning, ever known in that part in the memory of man, the preceding afternoon having been extreme hot and sultry. The inhabitants of the vale heard a strange buzzing noise, like the working of a maltmill, or wind in the tops of trees, for two hours together, before the breaking of the clouds, which was accompanied by the water-fall. From the havock it made in so short a time (for it was all over in less than two hours) it must have far exceeded any thunder shower ever seen; most probably it was a spout, or large body of water, which by the lightning incessantly rarefying the air, broke at once on the tops of the mountains, and so descended upon the valley below, about three miles long, half a mile broad, and lying nearly E. and W. closed in on the S. and N. side, with prodigious high, steep, rocky mountains. Legburthet Fells on the N. side had almost the whole cataract, and the spout did not extend above a mile in length, and swelling chiefly four small brooks; but to that amazing degreee, that the greatest of them, called Catcheety Gill, swept away a mill and a kiln in five minutes, leaving the place where they stood covered with huge rocks and rubbish, 3 or 4 yards deep; so that one of the mill stones cannot be found. In the violence of the storm, the mountain tumbled so fast down, as to choak up the old course of this brook, the water forcing its way through shivery rock, and now runs there in a chasm 4 yards wide, and betwixt eight and nine deep. These brooks have lodged such quantities of gravel and sand on their bordering meadows, that they can never be recovered. Many vast pieces of rock have been carried a considerable way into the fields, larger than a team of ten horses can move; one of these measured nineteen yards about. The damages alone to the grounds, houses, highways, &c. are by some computed at 1000, by others at 1500 pounds. One of the said brooks, called Mose or Mosedale Beck, which rises near the source of the others, but runs North from the other side of Legburthet Fells, continues still foul and muddy, probably from having worked its channel into some mineral substance, which gives it the colour of water gushed from lead mines, and is so strong as to tinge the river Derwent, even at the sea, near twenty miles form their meeting. ... ... I have not found a map in this volume of the magazine; but - |
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see also | ||
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gazetteer links
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-- Legburthwaite Mill | ||
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-- "Mose Beck" -- Mosedale Beck | ||
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-- St John's in the Vale | ||
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