The Whixall Cyclone of 1889

The following is taken and modified from: https://newsfromthepastblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/01/1889-dog-blown-away-as-cyclone-hits-shropshire/

Reported in the Wellington Journal of Saturday 24 August 1889 was the visit to Whixall of a ‘perfect cyclone’. The report cited: At Whixall, where incalculable damage has been done to property and crops, as is evident on all sides, the inhabitants agree in the descriptions they give of the phenomenon. Without any warning in the elements, the cyclone came on with a great roar, which for a time drowned all ordinary sounds, as if it were the rush of a mighty body of water and an intense feeling of terror was created. This deafening sound lasted about five minutes, and in a short space of time trees were unrooted and stripped of their branches, hay stacks were bodily displaced, houses were partially unroofed and barns and outbuildings were demolished.

The image of the cyclone as printed in the paper at the time.

It went on to state: Mr Sherwood, or Waterloo, had a number of plum and other trees uprooted while William Sutton (of Rose Cottage), who was at Whixall Hall at the time, avoided serious injury as he was ‘blown across a large yard’ sustaining a deep cut over his ear due to falling roof tiles. Mr Darlington, the occupier of the hall, witnessed great branches torn off trees with one limb from a large beech tree being carried 160 yards;  ‘orchards, gardens , cornfields, and the land around the hall are strewn all over with branches, hay, straw, slates, and various missiles.’ A one point a big dog kennel and dog were moved up to 20 yards in the wind.

The cyclone is reported as being approximately 3.5miles long and 150 yards wide moving easterly (although the newspaper report states westerly)starting somewhere near the canal by Whixall Hall, before moving north-west near Bostock Hall then veering more easterly over Coton Hall before dying off at Tilstock Park.