Next Wednesday at 21.00 the excellent BBC 2 documentary series about the weather looks at winds. It features some remarkable wind based stories but unfortunately does not mention the famous (!) Whaley Bridge Tornado of 20 July 1662.

I thought users of this forum may be interested in the following information I found in Chambers’ 1869 book of days:

A TORNADO IN CHESHIRE

The 20th of July 1662 was marked in Lancashire and Cheshire by a storm of prodigious violence, accompanied by a fall of heavy hailstones. What, however, chiefly distinguished the day, was a travelling vortex or whirlwind, which produced some remarkable effects, and is thus vividly described in a volume, entitled Admirable Curiosities, &c., published in London in 1682.

'In the same day,' says this narration, 'in the after-noon, in the forest of Maxfield [Macclesfield], there arose a great pillar of smoke, in height like a steeple, and judged twenty yards broad, which, making a most hideous noise, went along the ground six or seven miles, levelling all the way; it threw down fences and stone walls, and carried the stones a great distance from their places, but happening upon moorish ground [moor-land] not inhabited, it did the less hurt. The terrible noise it made so frightened the cattle, that they ran away, and were thereby pre-served; it passed over a cornfield, and laid it as low with the ground as if it had been trodden down by feet; it went through a wood, and turned up above an hundred trees by the roots; coming into a field full of cocks of hay ready to be carried in, it swept all away, so that scarce a handful of it could after-wards be found, only it left a great tree in the middle of the field, which it had brought from some other place. From the forest of Maxfield, it went up by a town called Taxal, and thence to Wailey Bridge [Whaley Bridge], where, and nowhere else, it over-threw an house or two, yet the people that were in them received not much hurt, but the timber was carried away nobody knew whither. From thence it went up the hills into Derbyshire, and so vanished. This account was given by Mr. Hurst, minister of Taxal, who had it from an eye-witness.'

Any more freak Whaley weather stories anyone?

Jean

"Incidentally the River Goyt was totally different before the construction of the two massive reservoirs up above. The river was wide and people used to camp up there and there were all sorts of river pastimes such as canoeing and swimming. Nowadays you would be hard put to find anywhere along its length where the water came up to your knees never mind swimming and canoeing.W


I think my Dad had been swimming during the day of the flood but they had gone home by the time the flash-flood had occurred.

It is nice to have confirmation of these memories because I have grown up with these stories but Dad is not so confident with his memory these days (a slight understatement unfortunately).

As an aside, Dad will be 88 this week and I will take him to Whaley within the next few weeks - his memories always anchor him to Whaley.

Gnats

Edited by user 09 May 2009 23:36:52(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hi,

I have just been reminded that next year, July 20th 2012, is the 350th anniversary of the Whaley Bridge Tornado, which occurred on 20th July 1662.

Cheers

Jon.

I have just tried the link and it states that the video is no longer available because you have closed your account.