69 



Bridge and Hammersmith. London Bridge was blocked up •with 

 wrecks, and the high tide caused tlie water to flow a great height 

 into Westminster Hall. 



In the floods occasioned by the storm on the rivers Severn 

 and Thames and coast of Holland, 8,000 persons lost their 

 lives. In one place 15,000 sheep were drowned. At Bristol 

 the storm blew down a church, and the tide was so high in the 

 streets that they were forced to pass about in boats, and many 

 hogsheads of tobacco and other goods were floating about in the 

 streets, the damage amounting to £1.50,000. 



No estimate at all approaching the truth could be made of the 

 total damage occasioned by this storm in diff'erent parts of the 

 country. De Foe considered the damage sustained in London 

 alone as £2,000,000, and far exceeding the damage done by the 

 Great Fire in 1666. The total number of lives lost were 

 suj^posed to be 8,000. 



Among the effects of this terrible storm were two disastrous 

 occurrences wliich have especially made it memorable in history. 

 One was the circumstance of the Bishop of Bath and WeUs and 

 his ■wife being killed at the same moment in the palace at 

 Wells ; the other was the destruction of the first Eddystone 

 Lighthouse. The first of these calamitous events is noticed in 

 the " Life of Bishop Ken." Ken was not Bishop of Bath and 

 Wells at that time. He had resigned the See, and it was his 

 successor Bishop Kidder who met with this sad fate. But Ken 

 himself had a narrow escape. He was staying with liis nephew, 

 Isaac Walton, Junior, at Poulshot. Writing to Bishop Lloyd, 

 of Norwich, he thus describes his danger, in a letter dated 

 Nov. 27 th, 1703 : — "I have no news to return but that last night 

 there was here the most violent ^vind that ever I knew ; the 

 house shaked all the night, we all rose and called the family to 

 prayers, and by the goodness of God we were safe amidst the 

 storm. It has done a great deal of hurt in the neighbourhood 

 and all about, which we cannot yet hear of ; but I fear it has 



