After all the disruption caused by the recent snowfalls, here at the History Centre we were interested to find out how often similar events occurred in our County in the past.

We’ve all heard about the terrible winters of 1813/14 when the River Thames froze and frost fairs were held. Charlote Grove lived at Ferne House, in Donhead St. Mary, and began writing diaries at the age of 18. Her entry for January 11^th, 1814 states ‘It snowed very hard. Charles contrived to walk down to Mrs Cooke’s. January 20^th - ‘A very deep snow. The mail prevented from coming’. January 25^th – ‘I walked with my father to the sheep fold. The icicles on the hedge look like the most beautiful cut glass’.

Men digging out a locomotive stuck near Newton Tony, 1927
To find out about other snowy winters of the 19th century, please 'read more'.

In 1841 came a disastrous event that has long been remembered on Salisbury Plain and was commemorated in two poems and a relief fund. At the beginning of January there had been heavy snowfall and the ground was frozen solid under a thick covering of snow. On the 13th a thaw began with snow melting rapidly but the ground was still frozen. The melt waters had nowhere to go but downhill over the frozen ground to the River Till. This rose quickly until it was eventually 7 to 8 feet deep, sweeping along the valley. Fortunately people had warning and no lives were lost but 28 houses were destroyed and 300 people were made homeless. An appeal for relief brought in money from a wide area.

1881 appears to have been a pretty snowy winter in Wiltshire. Herbert Spackham was 17 and living in Corsham. He reported snow on 11^th January but his entry for the18th reads ‘A most wretched day, the worst I can remember having, and even Dad and Martin said they had never experienced such weather. It was very windy and snowing, so that the snow drifted up into heaps so as to prevent all traffic… Shut up (shop) at six o’clock as there was no chance of any customers coming in’. On the 19^th ‘A wretched day, it came on to snow very thick about breakfast and kept on all day. Martin couldn’t go out for orders in the parish… We had no daily papers except the ‘Bristol Post’ and we had no letters delivered’. The 20^th was a ‘fine day with a hard frost’ and the snow had begun to thaw by Sunday the 23^rd. The school log book at Shrewton tells a similar story; on 21st January 1881 there was a severe snowstorm and the children were sent home as they would have been cut off by snowdrifts had they stayed at the school. The school remained closed for two days. In Market Lavington January 1881 brought a great snowstorm with snow three feet deep; in Burbage local roads were impassable for a week and in Maiden Bradley the school was closed for a week too. In Landford the school was closed for two weeks; it was the worst weather that had been seen in many years.

Clearing the street in Wroughton, 1907

In 1888 the snow came down in February.  Spackman, now aged 24, recorded on the 2^nd February ‘Had some skating on the pond during dinner time… We drove our wagonnette [to Lacock to take part in an ‘entertainment’ there]… Had some refreshment and then drove home. It was snowing all the way’. On the 14^th ‘[Having spent the night at the Belcher’s in Chippenham after playing for a dance] ‘Awful snowstorm in the night; didn’t attempt to get home in the morning… Started to get home by the 2 o’clock train, but owing to the snow the trains were all late and I didn’t arrive home till tea-time’. (No changes, there, then!). Various school log books also report disturbances. In Burbage it snowed for seven days in February and the Great Somerford inhabitants saw heavy snow which left the roads in a bad state; the school could only open in the afternoon with very few attending.

Clearing snow in Market Lavington, 1891

March 1891 was another notable date with schools closed at Lydiard Millicent and Maiden Bradley (which had to close for a week), and in 1908 snow storms closed the school at Donhead St. Mary.

Salisbury, 1908
 
It was not just snow that caused great disruption in times past. The Christmas of 1859 was long remembered for the tornado which swept across villages in North Wiltshire. They called it the ‘Great Storm’. John Chandler recounts the tale in his book 'A Wiltshire Christmas'. It began in Calne at about 1.30pm on December 30^th, tearing up tree roots and snapping the trunks of even large trees in Bowood Park. It unroofed houses and caused damage at Quemerford Villa and Slade’s Mill in Calne, and Cherhill Mill; hurled men to the ground. It carried on to attack trees in Yatesbury  where it was at its worst at Mr Tanner’s farm; unroofing cottages, knocking down chimneys, smashing windows and the walls of the kitchen garden, throwing a cow into a pond and hurling a large cart horse from one end of the yard to another (both who were none the worse for their experience!). It also lifted a 22cwt waggon over a hedge before moving on to Winterbourne Monkton. Accompanying the tornado for part of its journey were hailstones, nearly half an inch in thickness and two to three inches in diameter. They fell in large quantities at Berwick Bassett; some even exceeded six inches in diameter!  The Duke of Beaufort hunt was out riding at Bremhill. The hail stones cut their hands until their knuckles bled and made their horses 'kick and plunge'. 1859 seems to have been quite the year for hailstones as the school log books for Kington Langley reveal. On the 20^th of July a violent hailstorm smashed windows and blew down trees in the village. Some of the hailstones weighed over 1oz.