British Disasters, Bristol Channel floods
Bristol Channel floods
On 30 January 1607 the Bristol Channel floods resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, with houses and villages swept away, an estimated 200 square miles of farmland inundated and livestock destroyed, wrecking the local economy along the coasts of the Bristol Channel.
The devastation was particularly
bad on the Welsh side from Laugharne in
Carmarthenshire to above Chepstow on the
English border. Cardiff was the most badly
affected town. The coasts of Devon and the
Somerset Levels as far inland as Glastonbury
Tor, 14 miles (23 km) from the coast, were
also affected.
There remain plaques up to 8 feet (2 m) above sea level to show how high the waters rose on the sides of the surviving churches. It was commemorated in a contemporary pamphlet God’s warning to the people of England by the great overflowing of the waters or floods.
The plaque records the year as 1606 because, under the Julian calendar in use at that time, the new year did not start until Lady Day, 25 March
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