Icy Weather

Ice skating on the River Ouse at Bedford, 1891 [BP28/10]

  

Wednesday 14th February 1917: The recent spell of cold weather has completely stopped traffic on the Grand Junction Canal at Linslade. Ice between four and seven inches thick has prevented passage for boats since the last week of January. A dozen boats carrying sand for munitions and agricultural implements are frozen in near Linslade bridge. An ice boat drawn by eighteen horses has been at work breaking the ice between Grovebury sand pits and Fenny Stratford, but the large lumps of floating ice were a danger to the cargo boats and made the work too hard for the horse. Even steamers, with their advantage of greater power than the horse drawn boats, have been unable to travel on the canal. The delays are proving expensive to the boatmen. They have to feed their horses, with fodder costing about £1 per week, and many have to pay sixteen shillings a week for boat hire.  

The icy weather has at least allowed for some sport, which has in turn contributed towards the war effort. The Leighton Buzzard War Hospital Depot has received a total of £2 2s 9d raised from skating on Mr. George Garside’s sandpits. The activity was organised by Mr. Herbert Turner, the landlord of the Plume of Feathers public house in Lake Street. Skating has its dangers, and two small boys had to be rescued from Rushmere pond last week when thin ice gave way underneath them. Fortunately two discharged soldiers, Mr. A. Lansbury and Mr. P. Neal, were skating nearby and managed to rescue them from the water. Mr. Lansbury lay flat on the ice while Mr. Neal held his feet, and managed to grab the boys’ hands and pull them to safety.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 6th and 20th February 1917

Luton Town Footballers at the Front

Arthur Wileman (left) and Arthur Roe (right)

Friday 2nd February 1917: Luton Town footballers Arthur Wileman and Arthur Roe were drafted to France late last year where they are serving with the Royal Sussex Regiment. The Club Secretary has recently received this letter from Corporal Wileman:  

“The conditions out here are very bad. It is too cold to write. We have about six inches of snow, and we are on our 24 days in the line. I shall be very glad when we get out to have a bath – that is if we are lucky enough to get one. I see the Town are winning one or two matches. That was a very good win over Chelsea, and I should have liked to be in at that. We had a football match the other week while we were out of the trenches. ‘A’ Company challenged us, and did not know that Roe and I were footballers, so our chaps took them on. It was up to the neck in slucdg, even worse than the Welsh grounds! Well, we finished, winning by 10 goals to nil. Roe got five and I got five, so the other side began to make inquiries who we were. Now the battalion have challenged our company when we come out again. We must not grumble as long as we keep in good health out here, although it is very, very cold.” [1]

Source: Luton News, 1st February 1917

[1] Arthur Harold Wileman was killed on 28th April 1918 and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot memorial. He was awarded the Military Medal in January 1918. 

Floods at Leagrave

Leagrave Marsh, c.1910 [Z1306/75/12/9]

Sunday 16th April 1916: For the past three weeks the Midland Road area at Leagrave has been in a “deplorable” state, with houses flooded and dome wells overflowing into gardens (and even into houses) due to an unusual rise in the ground water level. At least two houses have had water seven inches deep under the front room floors, and it is likely this is true of many others. This is the third time this has happened in the last fifty years, but the first time since the area has been built on. Midland Road was previously part of a valley running through the hills between Luton and Dunstable to the River Lea. The heavy rainfall had left the lower part of this area waterlogged, and it became impossible to empty the dome wells as they quickly filled up again.

The Luton Borough Surveyor believes the blame lies with the construction of the cottages, which are at a considerably lower level than the road. A large adjacent plot of land had flooded, with the water rising above the air ventilators for the ground floors of the houses. This has caused all the lower rooms to flood, with standing water just underneath the floors; the tenants are having to live upstairs and the smell is “awful”. At the top of Dordans Road a large lake was covering about an acre, over two feet deep in places. Although the Council’s drain was able to cope until the second severe storm, it is clear that additional drainage will be needed.

Source: Luton News, 20th April 1916

More News of the Great Storm

Children collecting wood from fallen trees 

Wednesday 29th March 1916: News is coming in of the damage caused by yesterday’s great storm. In the town centre of Bedford a gable end blew in over Messrs Golding and Company’s shop in the High Street. The Bull clock and the Town Clock were blocked up with snow and both stopped at quarter past three. At the Modern School a flagstaff was blown over, smashing one of the battlements of the turret, and in Midland Road a window, complete with its frame, was blown out of the Co-operative Society’s Hall. Along with the gale came flooding as Monday night’s snow melted; many houses were flooded out at Biddenham and at Goldington the green was largely underwater and a number of cottages were surrounded.

Soldiers billeted in the Bedford area have begun clearing the many fallen trees from the roads and removing others which had been uprooted and toppled into the river at Bedford. In Newnham Lane no less than 39 large trees were blown down. The Town Council has permitted householders to fill their wood sheds by taking branches of no more than six inches diameter from the fallen trees, a task likely to take several days. In Kempston the famous walnut orchard of  Mr. Walter Harter, J.P. has been wrecked by the great gale. Three hundred and sixty five trees had been planted in 1815 to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo. These had since been thinned, leaving about half the original number, and others have occasionally blown down; of the 160 remaining trees, only 40 survived yesterday’s storm.

At Luton the roof blew off a stand at the football ground, with part being flung onto the Great Northern railway line behind where it hit a standing railway carriage. The Club secretary estimates that the damage will cost £150. Some of the huts at Biscot Camp suffered badly and the men were housed for the night at the Corn Exchange, St. Mary’s Hall and the Fire Station. Many trees were blown down in Wardown Park and elsewhere, and a number of motor cars had to be abandoned by their drivers. An employee at the Vauxhall Motors works in Kimpton Road was badly injured by a falling bough on Tuesday evening as she was entering the mess-room.

During the initial snow fall on Monday evening a motor car collided with a footstone of the Market Cross at Leighton Buzzard due to snow obscuring the windscreen and covering the headlamps. On Tuesday afternoon farmer had great difficulty getting home from Leighton market, and a number of tradesmen were stranded during their delivery rounds. The Postmaster at Leighton reports that he has never seen or heard of such a “hopeless tangle of wires”, with all telegraphic communication interrupted and almost all telephone wires broken. Soulbury Road in Linslade was almost blocked by snow drifts three to four feet deep. At Husborne Crawley a large chimney stack was blown on to the roof of a public house where it crashed through the roof and through the bedroom floor into the room below; fortunately nobody was nearby and there were no injuries. Motor cars sent to meet the Duke of Bedford at Bletchley Station were unable to get there, and the Duke was forced to sleep on a couch at the Station Hotel, which was already full of stranded passengers. The next day he set out for Woburn in the hotel motor car but was stopped by fallen trees across the road; he then decided to walk to Woburn, leaving his valet and luggage to return to the station.

Sources: Luton News 30th March 1916; Leighton Buzzard Observer 4th April 1916; Bedfordshire Times 31st March & 7th April 1916; Bedfordshire Standard 7th April 1916

Blizzard Hits Bedfordshire

Bedford Embankment after the blizzard

Tuesday 28th March 1916: This afternoon Bedfordshire has been hit by the worst blizzard since the great snowstorms of 1881 and 1899. Train, telegraph, and telephone communications have been cut off, and substantial damage has been done by the gales which accompanied the blizzard. The snow began on Monday evening and continued overnight, but was slushy and was soon cleared by rain during Tuesday. The first indication that exceptional weather was on the way came when telegraph and telephone wires were down further north and southbound trains arrived several hours late – one train from Glasgow scheduled to arrive at Luton at 7 a.m. did not appear until 4 p.m.  According to the driver: “I have never seen a blizzard like it in thirty years’ experience. I took over the train at Trent, and from there to Bedford the blizzard was at its worst – a fierce, blinding blizzard; nothing could stand against it. Telegraph poles were blown down in all directions. At one place I counted thirteen poles down in succession. In some places even the strong double poles had collapsed. In other places the wires broke with the weight of snow. Once we had to stop to get the engine clear of fallen wire. At Wigston we had to wait five hours. Telegraph poles had fallen on a goods train and blocked the line. The snow was about two feet deep there. When the line was cleared we went on again, but with the wires down the train at times had to crawl and stop to find out from signalmen what trains were on the line."

The line from Northampton through Leighton Buzzard to Tring was also badly hit. A driver said “I went dead slow through all this mess, and it’s well I did so, for the frozen snow on the line was so hard that the engine bumped along just as though she might have been an old cart travelling along a badly cobbled road. From Northampton right as far as Tring we did the crawl act. Not a wire was standing. It was dangerous to look out, and me and my mate had to be pretty nippy when we did put our heads out in case the broken wires should tear our eyes out. We stopped at every signal box, and I got orders to carry on my train ‘on my own,’ to take no risks, and to feel my way every inch. With the wires down and a lot of the signal boxes out of gear it was a pretty anxious job, I can tell you. All along the home stretch platelayers were out working like slaves at clearing the line, and the last few hours of the journey seemed to me to be a ‘stop’ at every hundred yards or so.” The high wind caused drifting, and by 6.30pm the Luton-Dunstable-Leighton line was blocked, with a goods train and a passenger train both snowed in at Blow’s Downs; the passengers were obliged to walk the five miles back to Dunstable Church Street station through the snow.  

Sources: Luton News 30th March 1916

Flooding at Luton

Flooding in New Bedford Road, Luton 1915 [Luton Times]

Tuesday 10th August 1915: A tremendous storm hit Luton this afternoon with thunder, lightning and torrential rain lasting over half an hour. The New Bedford Road was flooded from Mill Street to Alma Street, with water a foot deep under the Great Northern Railway bridge. Storm water rose up through the manholes, lifting the cover off one which became wedged under the base of a tram and was dragged along by the vehicle. There was more flooding at the corner of Old Bedford Road and Mill Street, in the lower part of Church Street and elsewhere. Fortunately the new storm water system for the Dunstable Road district has recently been completed and that are escaped the flood. The River Lea has overflowed onto the Moor and has reached the top of some of the bridges. Houses have been inundated with water in Russell Street, Upper Wellington Street, and Leagrave Road, causing damage to furniture, and water is being pumped out of warehouse basements in John Street. Nearly the entire moulding shop at the Davis Gas Stove Company in Dallow Road, which covers an area of three acres, is under water and work has been stopped, causing considerable delay and expense. The house of Mr. C. Stokes at 104 Albert Road was struck by lighning; bricks from the chimneys fell into the kitchen and sitting room hearths, but nobody was injured.

Source: Luton Times 13 August 1915