Lynmouth
My parents spent their honeymoon here in Devon in 1947, and I have photos of them both taken in Watersmeet about a mile and a half upstream from this place. They took me on holiday here in 1950, and two years later the village was devastated by flooding which swept away everything in its path including over 100 buildings, 38 cars and 34 people including two young Australian backpackers who were on holiday. 420 people were made homeless. I believe it still ranks as the worst river flood experienced in the UK. On the right in my photo is the flood overflow area that was created after the disaster, and on the left you can see the bridge where the West Lyn River joins the East.
Officially it was caused by ‘the hand of God’, but man played his part in this disaster. During the first 14 days of August 1952 six inches of rain had already fallen on the East and West Lyn river catchment and consequently both the shallow top soils and the thicker underlying peat were already saturated before the massive thunderstorm which was to come on August 15th. Much of the underlying rock which forms the catchment area of the East and West Lyn on Exmoor is impermeable which means it does not allow water to percolate through it. The confluence of those two rivers is located here at the centre of the village of Lynmouth. In the Anglo-Saxon tongue, the name Lynmouth would have meant 'town on the torrent', so I guess they knew the rivers could get lively here. But alas, needs must as they say, and when Lynmouth began to become a popular coastal resort for visitors from all over Britain in Victorian times the course of the River West Lyn was diverted away from its original channel. This was done to allow hotels and houses to be built on the flat land that was made available once the river had been diverted. The river was redirected into a new man made and narrow and restricted channel so that it could flow into the sea.
On the evening of 15th August eyewitnesses described the clouds that accumulated over Exmoor as "purple black" - some even said the threatening skies had a weird greenish tinge. And more than one person observed that the clouds above North Devon and West Somerset were moving in completely opposite directions. Within hours, one of the most violent precipitations this country has ever seen was underway. On the day itself, just over 9 inches of rain fell to add to the 6 inches of rain that had already fallen in the first two weeks of August, and the top of Exmoor was totally unable to absorb any more. Many tons of water, soil, boulders and vegetation descended through the heavily wooded narrow valleys (known locally as coombes) of Exmoor from 500 metres up on the moor to meet at sea level in Lynmouth itself. The flood water as it crashed down through the East and West Lyn rivers plucked out hundreds of huge boulders weighing up to 46 tonnes from the river bed and adjacent banks. Many of the bridges along the East and West Lyn rivers became blocked solid with trees and boulders which acted together to dam the rivers so that millions of tonnes of water built up behind. This dam eventually gave way under the massive pressure of flood water that had built up sending a huge wave of water and debris down the river to the unsuspecting village of Lynmouth in the late evening. The culvert that had been created to allow more building to take place simply couldn’t cope with the demand now placed upon it, and consequently the water returned naturally to follow the course of its original channel out to the sea despite the fact that many homes and other properties had been built on it over the intervening years following its redirection.
Effectively, the Lynmouth that existed before 1952 was destroyed during that night. It has been calculated that the water that fell in that one day in August 1952 would supply the water needs of Lynmouth’s total population for 108 years. Following the devastation, 114,000 tons of rubble was cleared from the village, some of it being used to extend the Esplanade Car Park, but most of it being dumped into the channel and dispersed by tidal motion. It took nearly six years to rebuild and remodel Lynmouth, and the design of the flood overflow area is calculated to take one and a half times the amount of water that flowed through the village on that fateful day, so it is hoped that such a disaster could never happen again.
I should just add that like so many unexpected disasters there is a ‘conspiracy theory’. In 2001 a BBC Radio 4 documentary suggested that the events of 1952 were connected to Project Cumulus, secret cloud seeding experiments carried out by the Royal Air Force, and that classified documents that Project Cumulus contributed to the conditions that caused the exceptional rainfall that day had ‘gone missing’. The program included survivors telling how the air smelled of sulphur on the afternoon of the floods, and the rain fell so hard it hurt people's faces. The Ministry of Defence has always categorically denied knowledge of any cloud-seeding experiments taking place in the UK during early August 1952, but documents unearthed in 2001 suggest that Operation Cumulus was going on between August 4 and August 15 1952 - it was stopped abruptly on the day of the Lynmouth disaster. Cloud seeding methods included firing particles of salt, dry ice, or silver iodide, into clouds, either from an aeroplane or from burners on the ground. The British Geological Survey examined soil sediments in the district of Lynmouth to see if any silver or iodide residues remain. The testing was limited due to restrictions in place because of foot and mouth disease at the time, and it is inconclusive. However, silver residue was discovered in the catchment waters of the river Lyn. So who knows – but Operation Cumulus was put on hold indefinitely after the tragedy.
Lynmouth
My parents spent their honeymoon here in Devon in 1947, and I have photos of them both taken in Watersmeet about a mile and a half upstream from this place. They took me on holiday here in 1950, and two years later the village was devastated by flooding which swept away everything in its path including over 100 buildings, 38 cars and 34 people including two young Australian backpackers who were on holiday. 420 people were made homeless. I believe it still ranks as the worst river flood experienced in the UK. On the right in my photo is the flood overflow area that was created after the disaster, and on the left you can see the bridge where the West Lyn River joins the East.
Officially it was caused by ‘the hand of God’, but man played his part in this disaster. During the first 14 days of August 1952 six inches of rain had already fallen on the East and West Lyn river catchment and consequently both the shallow top soils and the thicker underlying peat were already saturated before the massive thunderstorm which was to come on August 15th. Much of the underlying rock which forms the catchment area of the East and West Lyn on Exmoor is impermeable which means it does not allow water to percolate through it. The confluence of those two rivers is located here at the centre of the village of Lynmouth. In the Anglo-Saxon tongue, the name Lynmouth would have meant 'town on the torrent', so I guess they knew the rivers could get lively here. But alas, needs must as they say, and when Lynmouth began to become a popular coastal resort for visitors from all over Britain in Victorian times the course of the River West Lyn was diverted away from its original channel. This was done to allow hotels and houses to be built on the flat land that was made available once the river had been diverted. The river was redirected into a new man made and narrow and restricted channel so that it could flow into the sea.
On the evening of 15th August eyewitnesses described the clouds that accumulated over Exmoor as "purple black" - some even said the threatening skies had a weird greenish tinge. And more than one person observed that the clouds above North Devon and West Somerset were moving in completely opposite directions. Within hours, one of the most violent precipitations this country has ever seen was underway. On the day itself, just over 9 inches of rain fell to add to the 6 inches of rain that had already fallen in the first two weeks of August, and the top of Exmoor was totally unable to absorb any more. Many tons of water, soil, boulders and vegetation descended through the heavily wooded narrow valleys (known locally as coombes) of Exmoor from 500 metres up on the moor to meet at sea level in Lynmouth itself. The flood water as it crashed down through the East and West Lyn rivers plucked out hundreds of huge boulders weighing up to 46 tonnes from the river bed and adjacent banks. Many of the bridges along the East and West Lyn rivers became blocked solid with trees and boulders which acted together to dam the rivers so that millions of tonnes of water built up behind. This dam eventually gave way under the massive pressure of flood water that had built up sending a huge wave of water and debris down the river to the unsuspecting village of Lynmouth in the late evening. The culvert that had been created to allow more building to take place simply couldn’t cope with the demand now placed upon it, and consequently the water returned naturally to follow the course of its original channel out to the sea despite the fact that many homes and other properties had been built on it over the intervening years following its redirection.
Effectively, the Lynmouth that existed before 1952 was destroyed during that night. It has been calculated that the water that fell in that one day in August 1952 would supply the water needs of Lynmouth’s total population for 108 years. Following the devastation, 114,000 tons of rubble was cleared from the village, some of it being used to extend the Esplanade Car Park, but most of it being dumped into the channel and dispersed by tidal motion. It took nearly six years to rebuild and remodel Lynmouth, and the design of the flood overflow area is calculated to take one and a half times the amount of water that flowed through the village on that fateful day, so it is hoped that such a disaster could never happen again.
I should just add that like so many unexpected disasters there is a ‘conspiracy theory’. In 2001 a BBC Radio 4 documentary suggested that the events of 1952 were connected to Project Cumulus, secret cloud seeding experiments carried out by the Royal Air Force, and that classified documents that Project Cumulus contributed to the conditions that caused the exceptional rainfall that day had ‘gone missing’. The program included survivors telling how the air smelled of sulphur on the afternoon of the floods, and the rain fell so hard it hurt people's faces. The Ministry of Defence has always categorically denied knowledge of any cloud-seeding experiments taking place in the UK during early August 1952, but documents unearthed in 2001 suggest that Operation Cumulus was going on between August 4 and August 15 1952 - it was stopped abruptly on the day of the Lynmouth disaster. Cloud seeding methods included firing particles of salt, dry ice, or silver iodide, into clouds, either from an aeroplane or from burners on the ground. The British Geological Survey examined soil sediments in the district of Lynmouth to see if any silver or iodide residues remain. The testing was limited due to restrictions in place because of foot and mouth disease at the time, and it is inconclusive. However, silver residue was discovered in the catchment waters of the river Lyn. So who knows – but Operation Cumulus was put on hold indefinitely after the tragedy.