A really blustery night

It’s a really blustery night – because our house is at the top of the road, facing almost directly west down the street, and because we live near the sea, we are full face to the west wind when it has a mind to blow – as it is right now! I have written here before about the disaster over four hundred years ago in 1607 when the hinterland around here was inundated – tsunami, undersea landslip off the Irish coast, spring high tide combined with other factors – no-one really knows the cause,  but probably more than two thousand poor souls lost their lives.

Our island country has had many disastrous floods over its history – having been born and brought up in Cambridgeshire, although I’m not old enough to remember, there was a dreadful flood all along the east coast of the country in 1953:

The North Sea flood of 1953 was the worst flood of the 20th century in England and Scotland. Over 990 miles of coastline was damaged, and sea walls were breached in 1,200 places, inundating 160,000 acres  250 square miles Flooding forced over 30,000 people from their homes, and 24,000 properties were greatly damage.
Wikipedia

I was looking up details of floods, and came across one I’d never heard of before,  the Great Storm of 1859, also known as The Royal Charter Storm. It was so called because of a ship which was lost, namely, The Royal Charter. The storm had started in the English Channel, but on the evening of the 25th October, at about 10p.m., the wind direction shifted and began to move up the west coast of Cornwall and through the Irish Sea. The Royal Charter, a steam clipper, which had set off from Melbourne in south Australia some weeks before, was on the very last part of her voyage, heading towards Liverpool.

Unfortunately – tragically,  at Point Lynas – a headland on the north-east corner of Anglesey, the northerly wind changed direction to east-north-east at 10 p.m. and had reached force 10. The Royal Charter was driven ashore and wrecked on the east coast of Anglesey just north of the village of Moelfre in the early hours of the morning of 26 October. Tragically and inevitably it was  wrecked on the rocks, with the dreadful loss of more than four hundred and fifty people.

This was not the only loss at sea around the British Isles that night and early morning, a total of 133 ships went down, ninety more were  badly damaged and it’s thought that more than eight hundred people (including some people on land) died as a result of what came to be known as The Royal Charter Storm. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure that the gale blowing outside tonight, is nowhere near that dangerous, and with the enormous improvements in safety in ships, I hope we won’t wake with the news of any disasters.