Some Account of the Storm of January in Bedfordshire. 211 



plantation of the Duke of Bedford' s^ several fir-trees were rooted 

 up ; the destructive effects of the storm may be tracked, through 

 that and an adjoining plantation on Wavendon Heath, to the 

 Fuller's-earth Lodge on the high road to Northampton. From 

 this place to Woburn Park there was no obstruction offered to 

 its progress. It attacked the evergreens in a plantation at Crawley 

 Grange near the gate of some water-meadows on the west, and 

 continued from thence to Crawley Grange plantations on the east. 

 Several very large trees were uprooted by the violence of the 

 wind, principally spruce fir, and many others broken in the 

 middle by their fall. It then took the course of a hollow in 

 a plantation of evergreens in Crawley Dean Hills, clearing away 

 all that resisted its progress — passing over the open part without 

 causing much damage. At Flitwick, about five miles distant, a 

 windmill was blown down, its cap and sails destroyed — half of 

 one of the latter was carried sixty yards before it fell, and then 

 rebounded ten yards further. One of the flaps, made of iron 

 and canvas, was blown to a distance of one hundred yards from 

 the mill. Several houses and barns in the village were untiled. 

 The storm then appears to have passed off in the direction of 

 Hitchin, on the borders of Hertfordshire. Its fury however ap- 

 pears in a great measure to have been spent on the plantations 

 of the Duke of Bedford, in the park and its vicinity. 



The number of trees blown down and broken on this property 

 is about five hundred. The principal damage was to the fir tribe, 

 and this is perhaps to be accounted for from their leaves holding 

 the wind, offering an obstacle to the gale, while the leafless state 

 of oaks, beeches, and other timber presented in this respect no 

 resistance. 



A person who was on his way to Brickhill describes the violence 

 of the storm to have been so great, as to force up the gravel on 

 the road, and carry thorn bushes between two and three hundred 

 yards. Several trees were blown down near him ; the window- 

 shutters of a house torn off; and all this destruction is stated not 

 to have occupied more than a minute and a half. It was ac- 

 companied by a torrent of- rain. A young man who was going 

 from Crawley to Woburn encountered the storm. Rain not 

 falUng when he left home, he had not provided himself with any 

 defence from what he did not anticipate on starting; he states 

 that he had not proceeded more than ten minutes on his way, on 

 arriving at the corner of the park wall on the road from Ampt- 

 hill to Woburn, when his clothes and hat were entirely soaked 

 through by a most heavy rain. In endeavouring to pass along 

 the foot-path which runs close under the wall, it was with the 

 utmost difficulty, owing to the violence of the storm, that he 

 could maintain his footing ; indeed it was so violent as to compel 



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