It is altogether beyond the province of this work to enter into any detail of the scientific peculiarities of the county of Worcester; but it would have been very satisfactory to have been able to have recorded here—besides those isolated disturbances of nature’s more ordinary course, which arrest the attention of indifferent spectators—the results of observations made by competent persons which might have formed the basis of a county meteorology. But, in truth, none such exist; excepting in the daily memoranda of one or two gentlemen extending over only a very few years, there are no data for arriving at any conclusions on the subject. As the members of the medical profession and the scientific agriculturist become increasingly alive to the important part which atmosphere and electricity play in the conditions of animal and vegetable life, the want of such tables will be severely felt. The city of Worcester itself stands but thirty-six feet above the level of the sea; and, from its peculiar position, its temperature is generally higher than that of the surrounding country or of the kingdom generally. Though Worcestershire may be considered as the central county of England, and consequently the most inland, yet we have our fair share of rain, and perhaps even more than an average quantity. Such observations as could be procured on this point will be found in the Appendix. The principal part of our rain, and the greater number of storms that visit us, come from the S.W., and the prevailing wind is also from that quarter. In some parts of the year it may be matter for every day observation to notice the vapours, gathered apparently in the Bristol Channel, attracted by the Malvern range, and spreading out a fan-like nimbus towards the N.E., which distributes its fertilising showers over Worcester and the lands lying between Bredon Hill on the one hand and the upper Severn on the other—often over a much more limited tract of country—while the lands beyond seem to lie under a dry and cloudless sky. The following are memoranda of the more remarkable natural phenomena which have excited notice within the county during this century.

1802—January 20—A hurricane occurred, doing great damage to the houses in and round Worcester. The windmill at Kempsey was set on fire by the sails being whirled round with so great rapidity.

1804—January 20—Violent gale from S.W., doing great damage. A stack of chimneys falling through the roof of the house of Mr. E. Harris, attorney, in Edgar Street, Worcester, killed the nursemaid, who was in bed with two children, who were but little hurt.

1805—January 25—The London mail to Worcester stopped by a heavy fall of snow.

1807—November 10—A violent storm occurred, which raged pretty generally over the whole country. A barge laden with coal, moored near Worcester bridge, was sunk. At Hanley Castle, and Stanford Park, a great many trees were blown down, and several houses unroofed.

1808—July 15—A most awful tempest from the S.W. The thunder continued in one unbroken roar for an hour and a half; and the hailstones which fell were like fragments of a vast plate of ice broken into pieces, being broad, flat, and ragged. Many of them were perfect and unmelted the next morning.

1809—January 29—Great flood upon the Severn, the water rising to within nineteen inches of the level of the extraordinary flood of 1795.

1810—September 22—A storm, described as “a dreadful whirlwind,” commencing at Fearnal Heath, and taking a direction due north, through Salwarp, Ombersley, Doverdale, and to the extremity of Hampton Lovett; and its effects were felt as far as Chaddesley Corbett. The principal sufferers were Sir John Pakington, Mr. Silvester of Doverdale, and Mr. Saunders of Mayeux. Mr. Silvester had two hundred trees on his farm, either torn up by the roots, or shattered at mid-trunk. Most of them were pear trees in full bearing.

1810—November 10—A tempest from the N.E. visited Worcester and its environs. Great numbers of trees torn up by the roots. The lightning struck the house of Mr. Harris of Edgar Street, came down the chimney of the room in which he was sitting, burnt his hand and eyebrows, his stockings and papers, and tore down a wainscot on the opposite side of the room.

1811—May 27—The famous Worcester hailstorm happened this day. It was indeed a tempest, such as had been scarcely ever known in this country before. Between four and five o’clock p.m., clouds of a horrible blackness came up from the S.E., accompanied by a hideous noise. Shortly hail began to fall, which almost immediately became a storm of ice, and fell furiously in flakes of about five or six inches in circumference. The windows of almost every house which faced the S.E. were wholly demolished in a few minutes—gardens were laid utterly waste—and fields, both of grass and corn, sustained irreparable damage. The ice-storm was succeeded by heavy torrents of rain, with all the terrors of a tropical tempest. The river Severn in one hour rose six feet, and continued gradually to swell its torrent till it had reached the height of twenty feet; and the flood, rapid and wide-spreading, swept away in its impetuous career whole herds of cattle from the adjacent fields. 1,200 panes of glass were broken in Messrs. Barr’s china manufactory, 500 in the Workhouse, and 2,000 in Messrs. Chamberlain’s factory. Messrs. Freame’s cabinet warehouse, Goose Lane, lost 1,000 panes, and all the public buildings suffered severely. 150 rooks were killed in the rookery at the White Ladies, and a vast many other birds were also afterwards found dead. At Henwick and Hallow the crops were miserably injured. The cost of replacing the glass broken in the city, alone, was estimated at £5,000; and there being neither sufficient materials nor workpeople at hand to repair it, the inhabitants for weeks had to suffer the inconvenience of exposure to the weather. One glazier, who started off to Stourbridge and purchased all the glass he could lay his hands on, is said to have laid the foundation of a fortune by this calamity. We have no record of the state of the atmosphere previous to this storm.

1814—January 12—The Severn frozen over at Worcester, so as to admit of parties walking across it, and the weather in every respect most severe. January 20—The frost continued with such severity that the Severn was frozen over at Tewkesbury, and several persons going to Tewkesbury market rode over it at the Lode. The roads, also, were so blocked up by snow as to render traffic of every description almost impossible.

1817—June 21—The neighbourhood of Stanford visited with a tremendous tempest. From seven to ten p.m., the roar of the thunder was incessant; the lightning one continued sheet of fire; and the rain descended in such torrents that the whole country was inundated. The brook running from Hanley William through Orleton rose to an enormous height, and carried away fences, trees, and other obstacles, lodging them at great distances. Many hop yards destroyed, and the soil almost wholly washed away. The thermometer stood at 112° Fahrenheit in the sun, on the day before this storm, and at 82° in the shade.

1818—March 4—A very furious storm from the S.W. experienced at Worcester, continuing for about six hours. A great deal of damage done to the roofs of houses. The Bristol mail was detained eleven hours by the floods.

1818—April 11—Great flood on the river Severn, the water rising to within three feet of the height which it reached in February, 1795.

1820—January 14—The Severn frozen over.

1820—May 12—A thunderstorm occurred, which was very terrific in several parts of the county. A rick of hay at Mr. Coucher’s, Woodmanton, Clifton-on-Teme, was set on fire and wholly burnt; and four deer were killed by the lightning in Hagley Park.

1821—January 20—The Severn frozen over.

1821—May 2—A very fearful thunderstorm occurred, which was general throughout the kingdom. It did not do much damage in Worcestershire. At Northwick Park five deer were killed, and their bodies were found floating in the large sheet of water there. Four out of the five were six-year-old bucks; and it was surmised that, blinded by the lightning, they ran into the water; and though deer customarily swim well, yet they were now unable to exert themselves and so were drowned.1821—December 24—Great floods upon the Severn, which entirely cut off the communication between Worcester and the lower parts of the county. The cellars of all the houses near the Severn were flooded for some days.

1822—May 20—A destructive thunderstorm in the neighbourhood of Worcester. The hailstones, which were unusually large, smashed great quantities of glass—particularly about Spetchley, where six hundred panes were broken in the hothouses of R. Berkeley, Esq. Hailstones were picked up measuring four inches in circumference.

1822—December 5—A terrific hurricane from the S.W., which raged with more or less violence throughout the whole of England. In Worcester, the roofs of several houses were almost uncovered, and the gable end of a newly-erected building near the House of Industry was blown in. Five boats were sunk at Diglis; and at Upton bridge one was capsized with three men in it, one of whom was drowned. The coachman of the Holyhead mail was twice blown off the box, and one of the horses dropped down dead, on arriving at Chester, from excessive fatigue.

1825—July 19—A tempest in the neighbourhood of Tenbury and Cleobury Mortimer. The electric fluid struck an oak tree at Kinlet, and killed nine sheep sheltering beneath it; set fire to the wooden steeple of Neen Savage Church, melting the bells which it contained, and threatening the destruction of the entire edifice.

1825—December 14—A fearful storm of wind, hail, rain, and lightning, passed over Worcester from the S.W., and the electric fluid displaced a stone about half way up St. Andrew’s spire. Mr. G. Parry, farmer, of Hanbury, lost thirty-two ewes, heavy with lamb, and valued at £100.

1826—January 14—A storm of wind, which blew a perfect hurricane about noon. A stack of chimneys at Mr. Sidebottom’s house, at Worcester, fell through the roof and two floors, severely injuring a servant. Trees in the neighbourhood were torn up by the roots, walls and fences laid flat, and corn and hay ricks unthatched and scattered. A considerable part of the spire of Cleobury Mortimer Church was broken off during divine service, and the congregation rushed out of the edifice in terror. A barge, heavily laden with coal, was sunk in the Severn.

1828—July 8—A tempest of considerable violence, during which the lightning struck a house in Newdix Court, High Street, Worcester, and a cottage near Merriman’s Hill—not, however, doing much damage in either case. Vehement gusts of wind stripped old roofs of their tiling, and blew down several trees in the neighbourhood.

1830—January 20—A very heavy fall of snow, blocking up all the roads, so that no coaches reached Worcester at all from the west, and the London coaches came in a day after their time.

1831—July 10—A tempest which raged throughout the county, doing much damage. The lightning struck Hales, a watchman of Worcester, while sitting at the door of a house at Spetchley, and he was for a time paralysed, while the blood flowed from his ears and mouth. At Wick a cottage was burnt down, and the nephew of the widow who occupied it was affected by the electric fluid, much in the same manner as Hales. On Defford Common the hailstones lay in hillocks nine inches high, and some of the stones were as large as pigeon’s eggs. A great deal of glass was broken, birds killed, crops destroyed (the heads of the wheat being separated from the straw, and the pods of beans laid open), and fencing laid low.

1836—December 28–30—An extraordinary snowstorm, which extended over the greater part of the country, and continued for several days, till all the roads were blocked up and communication almost at an end. The Worcester mail was blocked up in the snow at Enstone, and could not be got out. The mails for three days were thirty-six hours behind time. In some places the snow was said to have drifted to a height of twenty feet.

1839—January 9—A fearful gale of wind, general throughout the country, and doing great damage to houses and plantations in this county. At Burlish Common, near Stourport, a stack of chimneys fell through the roof of a cottage on to the bed where a young woman was lying, and she sustained such injuries as to cause her death shortly afterwards.

1839—June 13—A very violent hailstorm raged chiefly in the northern part of the county. At Hagley, several hundred pounds’ worth of glass were destroyed; and in Mr. G. B. Lea’s spinning mill, at Drayton, near Kidderminster, 580 small panes were broken. At Hartlebury, &c., great damage was done to the growing crops—many fields of barley being totally destroyed; and at Harvington the hailstones were reported to lie six feet deep on the ground: fifty rooks were killed in that neighbourhood.

1839—July 31—In consequence of unintermittent rains for several days together, a flood occurred in all the running streams, which rose higher than had been known for many years. Of course, great damage was done to the pastures and crops. On several roads communication was cut off. The Ludlow and Aberystwith mails to Worcester were both stopped. The guard of the Ludlow mail attempted to get on in a two-horse fly; but, at Newnham, the fly was fairly floated, and the guard himself narrowly escaped drowning. The Aberystwith coach was stopped at Knightsford bridge, and had to be lashed to a tree: the bags were brought away in boats.

1843—July 5—An alarming tempest visited Worcester and the neighbourhood, killing several sheep, shivering fine trees, and the subsequent hail destroying much glass in greenhouses.

1843—July 13—A very severe thunderstorm again occurred, igniting some farm buildings at Abberton, killing a mare at Redditch, and doing other damage. The wife of a labourer at Eastnor was struck by the lightning, and the whole of her apparel was reduced to tinder; the steel busk of her stays was heated to a red heat! and her body, in consequence, frightfully burnt—nevertheless she recovered. The wife of a gardener at Inkberrow, named Hopkins, was sitting at the fireplace, when the electric fluid came down the chimney, and striking the woman, passed along her spine, killing her on the spot. The damage done to the crops along the eastern border of the county was very great.

1843—August 9—A most violent thunderstorm, whose chief fury seemed to be spent immediately over the city of Worcester. Wind in S.W. For two hours the thunder pealed incessantly, and the electric fluid struck at least ten houses in the city, but without doing any material damage at either place. At one house which the lightning entered, in the Shambles, a boy was standing with an awl in his hand, and the electric fluid severed the blade from the haft, leaving the latter in the hand of the boy!

1845—July 6—A terrific thunderstorm, extending over all the S.W. and midland counties of England, broke this evening over Worcester, just as the several congregations were leaving their respective places of worship. Just before the hurricane of rain commenced, the whole clouded sky was covered with a lurid glare, as if from the reflection of a distant conflagration. A great number of fine trees were uprooted, especially near Bewdley. At Witley Court, great damage was done to the windows and conservatories; at Pershore the hailstones were, in fact, large pieces of ice, and some 2,000 panes of glass were broken.

1846—August 1—A violent thunderstorm, which did considerable damage in some parts of England, but not much in this neighbourhood. Two lambs, belonging to J. Lea, Esq., of The Shrubbery, Kidderminster, were killed by the lightning.