loss of lives, than I will venture to affirm for truth; as of several houses near Moorfields levelled with the ground: fourteen people drowned in a wherry going to Gravesend, and five in a wherry from Chelsea. Not that it is not very probable to be true; but as I resolve not to hand anything to posterity, but what comes very well attested, I omit such relations as I have not extraordinary assurance as to the fact.
The fall of brick walls, by the fury of this tempest, in and about London, would make a little book of itself; and as this affects the out-parts chiefly, where the gardens and yards are walled in, 30 few such have escaped: at St. Jaipes’s a considerable part of the garden wall; at Greenwich park there are several pieces of the wall down for an hundred rods in a place; and some much more, at Battersea, Chelsea, Putney, at Clapham, at Deptford, at Hackney, Islington, Hogsden, Woods close by St, John street, and on every side the city, the walls of the gardens have generally felt the shock, and lie flat on the ground twenty, thirty rod of walling in a place.
Churches destroyed.
The public edifices of the city come next under our consideration; and these have had their share in the fury of this terrible night.
A part of her Majesty’s palace, as is before observed, with a stack of chimnies in the centre of the new buildings, then not quite finished, fell with such a terrible noise as very much alarmed the whole household.
The roof of the guard house at Whitehall, as is also observed before, was quite blown off; and the great vane, or weathercock at Whitehall, blown down.
The lead, on the tops of the churches and other buildings, was in many places rolled up like a roll of parchment, and blown in some places clear off from the buildings; as at Westminster Abbey, St. Andrews, Holborn, Christ Church Hospital, and abundance of other places.
Two of the new built turrets, on the top of St. Mary Aldermary church, were blown off, whereof one fell upon the roof of the church; of eight pinnacles on the top of St. Albans, Wood street, five of them were blown down; part of one of the spires of St. Mary Overies blown off; four pinnacles on the steeple of St. Michael, Crooked lane, blown quite off: the vanes and spindles of the weathercocks in many places, bent quite down; as on St. Michael, Cornhill, St. Sepulchres’, the tower, and divers other places.
It was very remarkable, that the bridge over the Thames received but little damage, and not in proportion to what in common reason might be expected; since the buildings there stand high, and are not sheltered, as they are in the streets, one by another.
If I may be allowed to give this philosophical account of it, I hope it may not be absurd; that the indraft of the arches underneath the houses giving vent to the air, it passed there with a more than common current; and consequently relieved the buildings, by diverting the force of the storm: I ask pardon of the ingenious reader for this opinion, if it be not regular, and only present it to the world for want of a better; if those better furnished that way will supply us with a truer account, I shall withdraw mine, and submit to theirs. The fact however is certain, that the houses on bridge did not suffer in proportion to the other places; though all must allow, they do not seem to be stronger built, than other streets of the same sort.
Another observation I cannot but make; to which, as I have hundreds of instances, so I have many more witnesses to the truth of fact, and the uncommon experiment has made it the more observed.
The wind blew, during the whole storm, between the points of S.W. and N.W., not that I mean it blew at all these points, but I take a latitude of eight points to avoid exceptions, and to confirm my argument; since what I am insisting upon, could not be a natural cause from the winds blowing in any of those particular points.
If a building stood north and south, it must be a consequence that the east side slope of the roof must be the lee-side, lie out of the wind, be weathered by the ridge, and consequently receive no damage in a direct line.
But against this rational way of arguing, we are convinced by demonstration and experiment, after which argument must be silent. It was not in one place or two, but in many places; that where a building stood ranging north and south the sides or slopes of the roof to the east and west, the east side of the roof would be stript and untiled by the violence of the wind; and the west side, which lay open to the wind, be sound and untouched.
This, I conceive, must happen either where the building had some open part, as windows or doors to receive in the wind in the inside, which being pushed forward by the succeeding particles of the air, must force its way forward, and so lift off the tiling on the leeward side of the building; or it must happen from the position of such building near some other higher place or building, where the wind being repulsed, must be forced back again in eddies; and consequently taking the tiles from the lower side of the roof, rip them up with the more ease.
However it was, it appeared in many places, the windward side of the roof would be whole, and the leeward side, or the side from the wind, be untiled; in other places, a high building next the wind has been not much hurt, and a lower building on the leeward side of the high one clean ript, and hardly a tile left upon it: this is plain in the building of Christ Church Hospital in London, where the building on the west and south side of the cloister was at least twenty five foot higher than the east side, and yet the roof of the lower side on the east was quite untiled by the storm; and remains at the writing of this, covered with deal boards above an hundred feet in length.
Trees blown down.
The blowing down of trees may come in for another article in this part; of which, in proportion to the quantity, here was as much as in any part of England: some printed accounts tell us of seventy trees in Moorfields blown down, which may be true; but that some of them were three yards about, as is affirmed by the authors, I cannot allow; above a hundred elms in St. James’s Park, some whereof were of such growth, as they tell us they were planted by Cardinal Wolsey; whether that part of it be true or not, is little to the matter, but only to imply that they were very great trees; about Baums, commonly called Whitmore house, there were above two hundred trees blown down, and some of them of extraordinary size broken off in the middle.
And it was observed, that in the morning after the storm was abated, it blew so hard, the women, who usually go for milk to the cowkeepers in the villages round the city, were not able to go along with their pails on their heads; and one that was more hardy than the rest, was blown away by the fury of the storm, and forced into a pond, but by struggling hard, got out, and avoided being drowned; and some that ventured out with milk the evening after, had their pails and milk blown off from their heads.
It is impossible to innumerate the particulars of the damage suffered, and of the accidents which happened under these several heads, in and about the city of London; the houses looked like skeletons, and an universal air of horror seemed to sit on the countenances of the people; all business seemed to be laid aside for the time, and people were generally intent upon getting help to repair their habitations.
It pleased God so to direct things, that there fell no rain in any considerable quantity, except what fell the same night or the ensuing day, for near three weeks after the storm, though it was a time of the year that is generally dripping. Had a wet rainy season followed the storm, the damage which would have been suffered in and about this city to household goods, furniture and merchandise, would have been incredible, and might have equalled all the rest of the calamity: but the weather proved fair and temperate for near a month after the storm, which gave people a great deal of leisure in providing themselves shelter, and fortifying their houses against the accidents of weather by deal boards, old tiles, pieces of sail cloth, tarpaulin, and the like.
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