LANDSLIP NEAE FOLKESTONE! 



BY WHICH TWO PERSONS LOST THEIR LIVES. 



2 1st January^ 1891. 



{Short address given on the ground hy Captain McDakin, when 

 acting as guide to a party of the D.N.H. and E.K.N.H. Societies.'^ 



SUCH was the heading of a report printed in the local papers of the 

 time. 



On visiting the place a few days after the catastrophe, it 

 appeared to have been caused by a sudden rush of water from the 

 slopes above. The landslip having been a secondary cause. 



The exact spot is indicated on the Ordnance contour map by 

 two black dots, representing houses, that to west close to the elevation 

 number 369, and north of a farm named Danton Pinch is, or rather 

 was, the cottage that on Wednesda}' morning, the 21st January, 

 1 89 1, was overwhelmed and swept across the carriage road by the 

 sudden thawing of a mass of snow that had accumulated on the top 

 of the chalk escarpment, about 150ft. above it, and 500ft. above sea 

 level. 



The water first flowed into a coombe at the top, sloping down 

 from north to south, with an angle of 20° for 80 yards, and a width 

 at its gorge of 55 yards. 



For about 70 yards farther it ran over a slope of 30°, until it 

 reached an old fall having an angle of 40° degrees, rushing down this 

 it tore out a mass of rubbly chalk, and pouring again over a lower 

 slope of 30° fell upon the house, sweeping it over the road into a field 

 below, carrying the straw roof a distance of 60 yards. It was in this 

 roof that the three children were miraculously preserved, bundled 

 over and over down a steep slope for 30ft., and in this way carried 60 

 yards. The boy of ten years of age, William Hayward, was awoke 

 by the water running over his face, and behaved in a brave and ready 

 witted manner in rescuing his little sister of eight and baby brother 

 of under two years of age. 



