There is no doubt that Brits love to talk about the weather. From our records it seems this has been the case for centuries! Mentions of the weather can be found in our collections in diaries and letters, newspapers, agricultural records and perhaps more surprisingly in parish registers.
As winter approaches spare a thought for the Rector of Winterborne Clenston who endured the destruction of the Parsonage House due to flooding caused by melting snow.
The parish register (PE-WCL/RE/1/1) begins
“It appears from an ancient manuscript that the Parsonage House, being very much decayed, was thrown down in the year 1683 by a Flood occasioned by a sudden and rapid thaw of snow…”
The ‘ancient manuscript’ is in fact an earlier parish register where the Revd Peter Dickson describes, in Latin, how the Parsonage House was lost to a ‘river of snow.’
The Parsonage House was again destroyed by floods in 1795, caused once again by melting snow, with the flood-water being so deep that
“Mrs Galpine who inhabited the Rectory was obliged to be taken by a ladder from the South chamber window…”
After these repeated incidents measures were taken to try and avoid future damage to the Parsonage House. A new wall with ‘opened arches’ was built nearby in Mr Pleydell’s paddock, the last wall having been knocked down by the flood. An orchard was also planted. Unfortunately the measures did not work and in February 1828 the Parsonage House was once again flooded ‘by the bursts of springs from underneath’.
1828 seems to have been a notable year for violent weather in Dorset. The vicar of Osmington notes in the christening register (PE-OSM/RE/2/1) a heavy storm in December, with thunder and lightening through the night and part of the next day, while in April of the same year the rector of Chilcombe records a ‘water spout’ in the village (PE-CHC/RE/1/1).
Wild and stormy weather was often noted by the clergy in the parish registers of Dorset. In 1703 for example the rector of Melcombe Regis records that
‘the great storme both at sea and land the greatest that ever any man knew in Ingland was on the 26 day of November at night in the year 1703’
This storm is reported to have swept across southern England – collapsing buildings, uprooting trees and causing an estimated 15,000 deaths. While the vicar of Halstock describes in detail, in that villages’ christening register, a storm of August 1871 (PE-HAL/RE/4/1), describing how local streams broke their banks to flow through the village ‘like the torrent of a great river’. Sadly a Thomas Abbott ‘going home this evening’ was swept away by the flood and his body not recovered for three days despite laying only a hundred yards from the church.
Historic weather data is invaluable in analysing the impact of industrialisation and can help inform predictions about the future of our climate. If you want to get involved in this work, other organisations with historical weather data are currently transcribing hand-written records, for example Old Weather: https://www.oldweather.org/