After the blizzard it loomed over a row of small cottages below. In the Sussex town of Lewes, immense drifts had piled up upon the chalk cliffs above the town, which the strong winds sculpted into a long cornice weighing hundreds of tons. The London Globe reported by New Year that “not in the greatest memory of the oldest citizens has there ever been such a stopping up of the mails (mail coaches) for so many days in London which is now of the gravest concern in the minds of all commercial men”. The following year the pendulum swung completely the other way, and 1542 was a year of widespread flooding across Britain.Ī severe cold spell began on 23 December 1836, and on Christmas Eve a gale force easterly wind ushered in one of the greatest snowstorms of the 19th century, with drifting snow 10–40 ft deep in places. Only in October 1541 did the weather finally relent. Livestock now died in huge numbers, with even the deepest wells now dry for months, and hay and feed impossible to find. Parishes across the country prayed for rains that did not come.
Disease and hunger cast a great shadow over Britain, like that of a plague. The River Trent, described in spring as a ‘runnel’, or brook, soon ran totally dry. It was so hot in Britain that some forests began to die from drought.ĭespair grew to desperation parts of Europe suffered virtual desertification by July 1541.
A second hot dry spring evolved into a second blistering summer in 1541.
Winter remained unusually warm in Bavaria in November people were still swimming in mountain lakes to keep cool. Weak winter rains failed to replenish Europe’s thirsting water supplies, and the crisis deepened. Unlike many of England’s drought summers, rain did not return to save the day in autumn 1540. In Rome, not a drop of rain fell for nine months the Rhine dried up in places, and the Seine in Paris ran dry. One Alsace farmer reported it was possible “for a man dangle his legs in the great fissures” that formed on empty riverbeds. On the continent, Switzerland and France saw grapes wither by July harvests were lost, fruit died and rotted on trees that shed their leaves, and rivers and streams vanished. The resulting dysentery and cholera killed thousands. Freshwater from the Thames shrank to such an unprecedented extent that seawater flowed on the tide past London Bridge, polluting the water supply. The spring saw wells, aquifers, streams and rivers all start to dry out – between February and September, rain fell only six times in London. Immediately prior to this, however, Britain and most of Europe suffered a cataclysmic two-year drought.įrom February 1540 rainfall pretty much ceased March was exceptionally warm, and April and May were hot and dry. Within 50 years, the start of a major climatic downturn saw the widespread abandonment of previously thriving settlements across Britain’s highlands – the remains of some of which can still be found today.Īfter 1550, Britain and Europe’s climate cooled significantly – a fact illustrated most vividly by the continuous growth of Europe’s glaciers until the 19th century. This is widely accepted as the longest and possibly most severe winter of the last millennium. In France and Italy olive trees, vines and great swathes of fruit trees were killed, and many French watermills were reported crushed by ice flows that had gathered on the rivers. Icebergs surged down from Iceland, clogging the North Sea and the English Channel, and it was possible to ride a horse from Denmark all the way to Norway across the deep-frozen North Sea. Most major European rivers froze, and the Baltic Sea was unnavigable. Far to the south, the Bosphorus froze in its entirety at Constantinople, and the lower Danube froze over completely – the only known occurrence. While water-bearing traffic was frozen at anchor, other forms of travel and commerce became impossible due to hard packed ice and deep snow. The Thames was frozen over for the best part of three months, and it was “possible to walk dry shod across the entire river throughout the season”. In England, trees split, birds were frozen to death in flight, and avian populations were decimated. This is the 15-week deep-freeze of 1407–8.Įarly December 1407 saw a severe frost set in across much of Europe that lasted until late March. Yet one, slightly earlier winter stands alone, head and shoulders above all others about which we know. The 1430s was a decade estimated to be as cold as the 1690s – Britain’s coldest instrumentally measured decade – with six of its 10 winters rated ‘severe’.
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