208 THE SEA. 



of lead. So in Brenchly and Great Peckham, Kent, the former doing damage to the 

 church and porch as it fell, and entailing a total loss of 800 to 1,000, which would 

 represent much more in these days. " The cathedral church of Ely," said one of Defoe's 

 correspondents, " by the providence of God, did, contrary to all men's expectations, stand 

 out the shock, but suffered very much in every part of it, especially that which is called 

 the body of it, the lead being torn and rent up a considerable way together ; about 40 

 lights of glass blown down and shattered to pieces ; one ornamental pinnacle, belonging 

 to the north aisle, demolished ; and the lead in divers other parts of it blown up into great 

 heaps. Five chimneys falling down in a place called the Colledge, the place where the 

 prebendaries' lodgings are, did no other damage (praised be God !) than beat down some 

 part of the houses along with them. The loss which the church and college of Ely 

 sustained being, by computation, near 2,000." Accounts of nearly irretrievable damage 

 done to valuable painted church windows, for one of which at Fairford, Gloucester 

 1,500 had been offered, came from many points. In some cases the lead blown from roofs, 

 amounting to tons in weight, was so tightly rolled up that it took a number of men to 

 unroll it without cutting or other damage. 



The Bishop of Bath and Wells was killed under rather remarkable circumstances. 

 The palace was the relic of a very old castle, only one corner of it being modernised for 

 his lordship's use. Had the bishop slept in the new portion his life would have been 

 spared; but he remained in one of the older apartments. Two chimney-stacks fell and 

 crushed in the roof, driving it upon the bishop's bed, forcing it quite through the 

 next floor info the hall, and burying both himself and lady in the rubbish. The former 

 appears to have risen, perhaps perceiving the approaching danger, and was found, with 

 his brains dashed out, near a doorway. 



One of the most remarkable cases of the power of the wind ashore was the removal of 

 a stone of four hundredweight, which lay sheltered under a bank, to a distance of seven yards. 

 On the Kingscote estate, in Gloucester, 600 trees, all about eighty feet in height, were 

 thrown down within a compass of five acres. The storm was accompanied by thunder 

 and lightning and waterspouts. A clergyman, writing from Besselsleigh, says : " On 

 Friday, the 26th of November, in the afternoon, about four of the clock, a country fellow 

 came running to me, in a great fright, and very earnestly entreated me to go and see a 

 pillar, as he called it, in the air in a field hard by. I went with the fellow, and when I 

 came found it to be a spout marching directly with the wind; and I can think of 

 nothing I can compare it to better than the trunk of an elephant, which it resembled 

 only much bigger. It was extended to a great length, and swept the ground as it 

 went, leaving a mark behind. It crossed a field, and, which was very strange (and 

 which I should scarce have been induced to believe had I not myself seen it, besides 

 several countrymen, who were astonished at it, meeting with an oak that stood towards the 

 middle of the field, snapped the body of it asunder. Afterwards, crossing a road, it 

 sucked up the water that was in the cart-ruts. Then, coming to an old barn, it tumbled 

 it down, and the thatch that was on the top was carried about by the wind, which was 

 then very high and in great confusion. After this I followed it no farther, and therefore 

 saw no more of it, but a parishioner of mine, going from hence to Hincksey, in a field 



