105 
RAINFALL RECORDS AT WIRKSWORTH, 
DERBYSHIRE. 
THOMAS GIBBS. 
My late father made regular observations of rainfall at his 
residence, Bridge House, Wirksworth, from the beginning of 
18go until his death in February, 1911. As the guage has now 
been moved to another station and the record thus broken I 
propose in this paper to summarise the 21 years’ record. 
Wirksworth is situated at the head of the valley of the 
little river Ecclesbourne, a tributary of the Derwent which 
joins the principal stream at Duffield 9 miles to the South, and 
at the South Eastern corner of the great limestone plateau of 
West Derbyshire. The town itself stands at an altitude of 
between 450 and 700 feet above sea level and is situated in 
an amphitheatre of high hills, Barrel Edge, an escarpment 
of Kinder Scout Grit about a mile to the North-East exceeding 
tooo feet and the limestone plateau of Middleton Moor, about 
two miles to the North West, reaching 1173 feet above sea 
level. Between these two eminences a ridge of about 750 
feet elevation closes in the valley on the North. The gauge 
was 500 feet above sea level, and its receiving surface was one 
foot above the ground. 
Unfortunately for the first five years of the term only the 
years’ totals have been preserved, so that we have complete 
daily and monthly records for a period of sixteen years only. 
In the following table (page 106) I give the monthly and yearly 
rainfall from 1895 to 1910, both years included, and also the 
totals for the five years 1890-1894. 
The average yearly rainfall for the whole period of 21 years 
was 32.73 inches. The wettest year was 1900 in which the total 
fall was 41.27 inches or 1.24 of the average. The dryest was 
1893 with a fall of 22.77 inches or 0.70 of the average. The 
wettest three consecutive years were the last of the series, 
viz., 1908, 1909, and 1910, the average for the three years 
being 36.36 inches. The dryest were 1892-3-4 with an average 
of 27 inches. 
In the second table (p. 107) I give the average rainfall for each 
month for the sixteen years 1895-1910, together with the percent- 
age which each month’s average bears to the year’s fall. For 
the purpose of comparision I have added similar figures taken 
from two other records covering the same period, viz. :— 
Burton-on-Trent, from the Reports and Transactions of the 
Burton Natural History and Archaeological Society, and 
Wetwang, East Yorkshire, from Dr. H: R. Mill’s paper in 
“The Naturalist,’ 191I, pp., 251-3. 
1913 Feb. I. 
