1818.] Account of a Storm in Sussex. 4y 



Article IV. 



Account of a Storm in Sussex in 1729. 



The Editors have been favoured by Sir Joseph Banks with a 

 pamphlet, published in the year 1730, containing a narrative of 

 a very remarkable storm, that passed over a part of the counties 

 of Sussex and Kent, on May 20, in the preceding year. Except 

 in its much greater degree of violence, it appears to have borne 

 a very close resemblance to the hurricane of April 26, last, of 

 which Col. Beaufoy has given an account, published in the last 

 number of the Annals ; and as the pamphlet itself, as well as 

 the occurrence of which it treats, seem to have been nearly 

 forgotten, they conceive that a short abstract of it may not be 

 unacceptable to their readers. 



The author, who signs himself Richard Budgen, begins by 

 detailing the state of the weather for some days previous to 

 May 20 ; after a succession of winds from a northerly point, 

 attended by a low temperature, on the 12th, the air suddenly 

 became much warmer, accompanied with southerly winds, and 

 continued so until the day of the storm. The following is the 

 account of the day itself: " The 20th, a slight flying tempest in 

 the morning, with a little scattering rain ; the rest of the day 

 was very clear, and extremely hot and sultry ; wind south till 

 about five in the afternoon, when there began to appear a 

 haziness in the south, which, by degrees, with a vanishing edge, 

 arrived at our zenith about seven ; when there began to appear 

 plain symptoms of a tempest. We distinctly heard the thunder 

 at eight, and had a prospect of two different tempests ; one came 

 over by Newhaven, Lewes, and Crowborrow, and scattered part 

 of the shower upon us at Fraint, and Tunbridge-Wells ; the 

 other from Cuckmere-Haven, by Aldfriston, between Mayfield 

 and Burwash, to Wadhurst, &c. About nine, these storms 

 were passed over us into the north, and made an opening in the 

 south-east, where we had the surprising horror of seeing (at 

 about 20 miles distant) such unintermitting corruscations, toge- 

 ther with such dreadful darting and breaking forth of liquid fire, 

 at every flash of lightning (in the way of the hurricane from the 

 sea side into Kent), as, perhaps, has not been seen in this climate 

 for many ages." 



The storm commenced its ravages at the sea side, near Bex- 

 hill, in the eastern part of Sussex, and advanced nearly in a 

 straight line, and in a direction a little to the east of north, 

 across the country to Newenden, in Kent : here its fury was 

 considerably abated ; it was again more violent a few miles fur- 

 ther, but seems shortly afterwards to have been entirely 

 dispersed. Its breadth was well defined, and comparatively 

 limited ; for the first two miles it was no more than 30 rods, 



Vol. XII. N° I. D 



