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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINiS. 



damaged. The district of Marras Pendine and Amroth 

 was completely overflowed, and a great number of houses 

 inundated, the inhabitants escaping through the windows 

 and roofs. The water carried before it bridges, culverts, 

 hay-ricks, and everything which stood in its way. The 

 expanded inundations of the broad-flowing Severn cover 

 a very great tract, and its tributary streams commit a 

 more ruthless order of depredations between their spring 

 and junction. The worst floodings in 1848 were tliose 

 of the Severn, the Wye, and Warwickshire Avon ; the 

 chief places being at Hereford, Pershore, Evesham, and 

 Stratford. In February, 1852, the Severn and Wye 

 rose to an alarming height ; the former river, at Glou- 

 cester and Tewkesbury, rising in one hour 18 inches 

 upon the meadows. The lower part of the city of Here- 

 ford was so flooded by the Wye, that the inhabitants 

 were driven to their upper rooms, and ferry-boats were 

 established in the streets. In September of the same 

 year, the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Here- 

 ford were visited by a tremendous tempest ; in conse- 

 quence of which the Severn rose at Worcester, in one 

 night, from its low summer level, so that its banks were 

 overflowed, and its surface covered with uprooted trees 

 and crops, furniture, and drowned animals. In the 

 valley of the Teme, which river came down with a 

 " head" similar to the " bore," or tidal phenomenon on 

 the Severn, the number of sheep washed away in the 

 parish of Powick alone was 2,000, and some carcases of 

 the cattle were drifted into the Bristol Channel. Great 

 damage was done to the grain and meal in the various 

 mills. At Henwick mill, a rick of hay of about 12 tons 

 was bodily moved by the flood. The bop-yards, which 

 abound in the Teme valley, suffered greatly; at one 

 hop-yard, near Shelsley, poles and hops were washed 

 into the strea»H ; several houses, and many gardens and 

 roadways were destroyed; and at Stonebridge, the 

 Leigh brook, rising 20 feet above its ordinary level, de- 

 molished a house, drowning its inmates, and scatter- 

 ing it in fragments over the neighbourhood. The 

 river Froome overflowed its banks at many points ; and 

 numerous smaller streams, accumulating into rivers, 

 broke their embankments, flooding hundreds of acres ; 

 and the Hereford and Gloucester mail, together with 

 one of the passengers, was lost in the Froome, near 

 Dormington. All the Vale of Gloucester, comprising 

 a vast flat district on each side of the Severn, was one 

 wide-spreading sea, the water covering the fences, 

 leaving only the tops of the trees visible. The parishes 

 of Sandhurst, Longney, Elmore, and other villages near 

 the river, were completely deserted, the inhabitants 

 having fled to more elevated country. In some localities 

 the houses were completely submerged, only the chim- 

 neys remaining visible. At Gloucester, the dock ware- 

 houses, and even one of the churches, were inundated ; 

 and the city was three nights in darkness, owing to the 

 flooding of the gas-works. At Tewkesbury, boats were 

 employed to rescue the inhabitants. At Shrewsbury, 

 the abbey church, and nearly eiffht hundred houses, 

 were under water ; and the deluge extended for several 

 miles over the surrounding country. In December, the 

 Severn, hardly subsided, again rose; the houses in 

 Shrewsbury again suffoi-ed, and the meadows for many 



miles were flooded to the depth of several feet — so that 

 in many places along the Shrewsbury and Chester, and 

 also on the Shropshire Union, and Shrewsbury and Bir- 

 mingham railways, as far as the eye can reach, the land 

 was completely drowned, to the vast damage of seeds 

 and plants then in the ground. The almost unprece- 

 dented fall of rain during the latter end of 1852 pro- 

 duced similar disasters in the south-western counties. 

 At Bath, the river Avon overflowed, the water reaching 

 10 feet above the ordinary level, and inundating a great 

 many houses, the inhabitants taking refuge in their 

 upper apartments, and receiving supplies of food by 

 boats. In the neighbourhood of Bristol an immense 

 amount of property was destoyed. The central basin 

 of Somersetshire, or the marshes and moors about the 

 rivers Parret, Axe, and Brue, between Bridgewafer, 

 Wells, and Glastonbury, were completely under water, 

 rendering all traffic wholly impossible. The meadows 

 around Taunton were flooded: and at Langport and 

 upon Sedgmoor, the water accumulated to a disastrous 

 depth and extent, to the heavy loss of the graziers and 

 farmers of that rich pasturing district. In Devonshire, 

 the river Leman and Teign, at Newton Abbot and other 

 places; and in Cornwall, the river Camel, near Bodmin, 

 flooded their contiguoas lands with great damage. Few 

 districts are more afliicted by inundations than the valley 

 of the Thames. In 184G all the lotv lands for miles 

 above and beloio Windsor-bridge were flooded several 

 feet in depth ; and a great portion of the Home Park 

 of the Castle was completely under water. Again in 

 1847, and again in 1848, many thousands of acres in 

 the same neighbourhood were overflowed by the Thames 

 and the Kennett. In July, 1852, similar floodings 

 occurred, the hayfields between Swindon and Chippen- 

 ham being indicated only by the appearance of scattered 

 haymaking machines and other implements. In No- 

 vember and December of the same year, the valley from 

 Vauxhall to Windsor was a vast lake. Oxford ivas 

 standing in a sea of water, the Cherwell and Isis being 

 miles in width, a vast amount of cattle and agricultural 

 produce being carried away from the vicinity, and 

 several lives lost. It was computed that G,000 acres 

 on the Oxfordshire side of the Thames were under 

 water from September, 1852, to February, 1853. At 

 Maidenhead, Reading, Ealing, Uxbridge, and many other 

 places, the principal cern-fields were overspread with 

 several feet of water, and the number of houses inun- 

 dated was enormous. At Farringdon, the sheet of water 

 was of amazing extent ; and at Cricklade, Lechlade, 

 and other places, the farms were under water, heavy 

 losses inflicted, and great numbers of families reduced 

 to starvation. The Thame is in so choked a condition, 

 that there have been 17 floods in twelve months, and a 

 third of the hay harvest of 1853 was washed away. 

 Much land in Epsom, Dartford, Lewisham, and Charl- 

 ton, was overflowed in 1852. On the North Kent 

 Railway, the valley of the Medway and the marshes 

 along the Thames were one expanse of water for miles. 

 Parts of Chatham, Rochester, and Scrood were also 

 flooded. The damage to property and to health in 

 the suburbs of the metropolis was beyond estima- 

 tion. After the excessive rains of July, 1853, the 



