Another great storm (1902)

Post date: Mar 05, 2012 5:25:31 PM

The following is an extract from the Wateringbury Parish Magazine dated November 1902 , written by Rev. Grevile Livett, vicar.

This is not the first time that the Mid-Kent district has been visited by a storm, of sufficient violence to do very serious damage to the crops of fruit and hops. There seems to be something in the conformation of the country which favours the evolution of uncommonly heavy thunderstorms. One Edward Greensted, a schoolmaster of Wateringbury whose memorial tablet is affixed to the south wall of the Church tower, left an account of a storm which occurred on August 19th, 1763, when ''the injury done was so great that the next year, 1764, it was sensibly felt by the scarcity of fruit and hops in the orchards and plantations over which the tempest past." The storm of 1902 seems to have been equally severe and damaging except that in 1763 there was apparently more wind and consequently trees and chimney-pots suffered to a greater extent. In both cases, however, the greatest damage was caused by the hail-stones rather than by the rain and wind. I have been looking up the subject of hail-storms, and it appears that the formation of hail has not yet been fully investigated. Experts favour the theory that it is caused by whirlwinds connected with electrical changes in the atmosphere. According to the theory the vapour carried up by the gyrations of the whirlwind or tornado is, at a certain height, condensed into cloud and rain, and above that height into snow. But when the raindrops formed in the lower region are carried, by the powerful ascending currents of the whirlwind, into the cold snow regions they become frozen into clear hard ice or hail. These hailstones, being thrown outside the gyrations of the whirlwind, fall to the earth as hail of ordinary size. But sometimes, when the whirlwind assumes the force and proportions of a tornado, the stones are caught in the descent by the inflowing aerial current on all sides and again rapidly carried aloft into the freezing region. They may go through several such revolutions of ascent and descent before they ultimately fall to the ground. From the lower regions rain is carried up with them and they receive a fresh coating of solid ice, and higher up they get a coating of snow. This accounts for the alternate layers of clear and granular ice that are sometimes to be seen in broken hailstones. The fall of hail is always local, confined to the narrow belt of land over which the whirlwind travels. Sometimes two such whirlwinds travel simultaneously along lines nearly parallel, the tract of land between them receiving only a fall of rain. It is conceivable that hills might divert their course or make them converge together.

The morning of September the 10th was fine. The sky began to cloud over about mid-day. After dinner an observer on Canon Heath noticed storms gathering from the north-west and south-west. The first drops of rain lell about 2.30, ushering in a heavy thunderstorm. By three o'clock rivers of water were crossing the main street of the village at various points on their way from the higher ground to the valley and the roads that run north and south became raging torrents. Then began the hail, a slight fall at first, but soon became quite terrific in character, and lasting perhaps for twenty minutes it did an incalculable amount of harm in the parishes of Wateringbury, Teston, Nettlestead and West Farleigh. The centre of the heaviest and most destructive hail-storm seems, as far as one can gather, to have started on the top of the Rag-stone range, near Canon Court, and to have travelled in a south-easterly direction between Red Hill and the village, crossing the river near Teston. During the storm I was taking refuge with others in the Goods' Shed at Wateringbury Station, where we noticed that suddenly the wind veered round, suggesting that the storm rebounded from the high ground on the south side of the river back along the valley in a westerly or south-westerly direction. This change of direction was particularly noticed at Nettlestead Court, where the hops on the hill and part of the glass at the house were damaged by the storm coming from the north-west, and glass in the valley below was broken by hail coming from the north-east. For some hours afterwards the hail-storm area was enveloped in a thick cold fog.

The area of the thunder-storm and rain was much greater than that of the hail-storm, two men being struck by lightning at Hunton and a farm at Mereworth. The limits of the destructive hail in its initial direction apparently lay on the east side of Teston on the one hand and on the other catered across the Mereworth Road, a little to the west of the Cemetery. Thus it took in its course about 15 acres of the 28-acre field of Hermitage Farm, 10 acres of Manor Farm, the whole of the hops Canon Court Farm, on the east side of Canon Lane, and the whole of Mr. A. Leney's and Mr. Court’s hops. Mr. Court's hops at the Red Hill Farm and Mr. Fremlin's at Teston seem to have suffered more than any others: the bine was fairly stripped of its leaves, and only a very small proportion of hops were left, battered and bruised as to be hardly worth picking. The destruction was bad enough on other farms, for everywhere the ground was thickly carpeted with leaves and hops lying upon and mixed with a layer of hailstones several inches in thickness. All vegetation, fruit, vegetables and flowers, suffered equally with the hops. The fine apple-crops of the parish, which like the hops were unusually valuable in a year of general shortness, were completely ruined; they were sold by the ton and fetched less than the usual for ' drops.' The flower-gardens were desolated, and owners of good kitchen-gardens were obliged to begin forthwith purchasing vegetables for their household use, having lost the whole of their winter supply. Glass houses exposed to the violence of the storm had very few panes left whole; the hail smashed the thick (21 oz.) glass as easily as the thinner glass of old-fashioned window-sashes, and in one of the breweries even plate-glass was broken.

All this destruction was effected in very few minutes, for though the hail-storm from first to last may have lasted 15 or 20 minutes, the fall in any one spot cannot have occupied more than 8 or 10, except perhaps near the river where the storm passed and re-passed. The road in front of the Telegraph Inn was like a large lake, two or three feet deep, and fed by torrential rivers that came down Bow Road and Nettlestead Hill. The hailstone falling into this lake caused the water to leap up without exaggeration 15 to 18 inches : the continual bobbing up of miniature columns all over the surface ot the water was a really remarkable phenomenon. Walking up the Glebe afterwards I could anywhere pick up in one grasp a handful of hailstones of the size of American walnuts and larger. A few, of course, were much larger— the largest 1 have heard of measured 21/2 inches in its longer diameter. The great number and the extreme hardness of the stones gave the storm its destructive character. The majority of the stones were well rounded and composed of clear ice, showing on fracture a small amount of white granulation, sometimes as a central nucleus and sometimes in a layer immediately around a transparent central nucleus. Others, of all shapes and sizes, were evidently concretions ot smaller stones. The haw-haw at Barham Court was filled with hailstones, some of which had not melted fully six weeks afterwards.

Apart from the hail-storm, a considerable amount of damage was caused by the floods of water which destroyed the surface of the roads, taking away all the sharp sand and in some places ripping up the road metal. The heaps of road-metal stacked at the road-side were carried away. It is estimated that 50 tons of these stones were deposited in the neighbourhood of the station, and rumour speaks of 10 tons of coal having been similarly removed. Gullies were formed through the hop-gardens and fruit orchards by waters finding their way down-hill; masses of hops and apples in abundance were washed down deposited here and there wherever the streams received a check. Heaps of mud, overlain with hailstones two and three feet deep, were formed at various points along the road—opposite the Church,opposite Gransdon, and along the road to Teston.

A large volume of water found its way down to the stream at Upper Mill Farm. The pond there overflowed the low boundary-wall that curves round its lower end, and the water rushed round the cottages just below the road and filled the hollow in which the farm-buildings stand to a depth of 3 feet 3 inches. A back-wash from that flood deposited hailstones in the cellar of one of the cottages to a depth of two or three feet throughout. Many cellars were flooded. The weight of water which found its way into a cellar next to that of Mr. E. Morris, under the shop, broke down a brick partition and flooded the grocery store. The water flowed through the Vicar's study depositing mud, and the carpet had to be taken up and sent away to be cleaned. But many such experiences might be collected and recollected.

Of course the storm brought its humours—this is not meant for a joke! On the following Sunday the hoppers were selling compact pieces of ice formed of hailstones from the road side tied up with string, to excursionists who came to see the effect of the storm. One man is said to have made 17s. in that way. But the palm must be given to that ingenious youth who perched himself on a gate at Teston Farm and charged visitors (the master included!) one penny per head for admission to the hop-garden. That boy will make his fortune some day.

Extract from The Daily News, Perth of 22 October 1902:

If drought is the curse of Australian farmers and gardeners, hailstorms in

summer are the ruin of the English fruit ' growers ' The cables, have already told us of the damage done in Kent last month, and a Maidstone correspondent

of 'The' Globe' gives the following description of scenes witnessed in that dis

trict by himself : — 'I have heard of hail stones the size of pigeons' eggs. To

day I handled some fully as large as sparrows', and they were lying so thick that the fields had the appearance of a fall of snow on them, and in several places there were drifts of 50 to 100 yards, and so deep that the stones reached haif-way up to my horse's knees. Many fruit trees, more especially apples, were stripped of their foliage, and the fruit was hanging on bare shoots. A grower on whom I called seemed heartbroken, and gave me an apple which had actually bits cut out of it by the hail, and bruised and discolored on the exposed side. Cabbages, in cottage gardens were cut to pieces, the 'hearts' all showing. Hop and fruit-growers have had anxious times throughout 1902, but those in this district, at all events, will have sad reason to remember the storm of 10th September.

At one observing station a mile from Maidstone 1¹/₂ inches of rain was measured as the result of an hour's rainfall, and at this spot there was little hail. In the two villages of Teston and Wateringbury it is estimated that nearly £4,000 damage was done .

A grower who farms some 80 acres of hops at Teston has lost practically the whole of his crops. Col. Warde, M.P.,. who resides at Barham Court, Teston, is also a sufferer from the storm. No fewer than 1,650 panes, of glass in his greenhouses were smashed. Another property owner at Teston has lost 6,000 peaches, and nearly 400 bushels of apples and other fruit.

At Wateringbury, a brewer has very little left of his 60 acres of hops, which were regarded as among the finest in the country. Large portions of the district

and the main, roads of the neighborhood are still covered with hail seven or eight inches deep.

See also Wateringbury Hurricane (1763) and Global Warming (1895)