Lynmouth

:"Distinguish from Lynemouth in Northumberland."

Lynmouth is a village in Devon, England, on the north edge of Exmoor.

The village straddles the confluence of the West Lyn and East Lyn rivers, in a gorge convert|700|ft|m below Lynton, to which it is connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway.

The two villages are governed at local level by "Lynton and Lynmouth Town Council".

Lynmouth was described by Thomas Gainsborough, who honeymooned there with his bride Margaret Burr, as "the most delightful place for a landscape painter this country can boast".

The Lynmouth lifeboat

At 7:52pm on 12 January 1899, a 1,900 ton three-masted ship "Forrest Hall", carrying thirteen crew and five apprentices, was in trouble off Porlock Weir on the North Somerset coast to a severe gale which had been blowing all day. She had been under tow, but the tow rope had broken. She was dragging her anchor and had lost her steering gear. The ship's destruction was probable. The alarm was raised for the "Louisa" (the Lynmouth lifeboat) to be launched to assist. However, due to the terrible weather, the launch was impossible. Jack Crocombe, the coxswain of "Louisa" proposed to take the boat by road to Porlock's sheltered harbour — convert|13|mi|km around the coast — and launch it from there.

The boat plus its carriage weighed about 10 tons, and transporting it would not be easy. 20 horses and 100 men started by hauling the boat up the 1 in 4 Countisbury Hill out of Lynmouth. Six of the men were sent ahead with picks and shovels to widen the road. The highest point is convert|1423|ft|m above sea level. After crossing the convert|15|mi|km of wild Exmoor paths, the dangerous Porlock Hill had to be descended with horses and men pulling ropes to stall the descent; during this they had to demolish part of a garden wall and fell a large tree to make a way. The lifeboat reached Porlock Weir at 6:30 A.M. and was launched.

Although cold, wet, hungry and exhausted, the crew rowed for over an hour in heavy seas to reach the stricken Forest Hall and rescue the thirteen men and five apprentices with no casualties; but four of the horses used died of exhaustion. The "Forrest Hall" was towed into Barry, Wales.

A fuller account of this story can be found in John Travis' book "An Illustrated History of Lynton and Lynmouth".

The event was re-enacted 100 years later, in daylight.

The Lynmouth disaster

On 15 and 16 August 1952, a storm of tropical intensity broke over south-west England, depositing convert|229|mm|in of rain within 24 hours on an already waterlogged Exmoor. It is thought that a cold front scooped up a thunderstorm, and the orographic effect worsened the storm. Debris-laden floodwaters cascaded down the northern escarpment of the moor, converging upon the village of Lynmouth; in particular, in the upper West Lyn valley, a dam was formed by fallen trees, etc., which in due course gave way, sending a huge wave of water and debris down that river. A guest at the "Lyndale Hotel" described the night:

"From seven o'clock last night the waters rose rapidly and at nine o'clock it was just like an avalanche coming through our hotel, bringing down boulders from the hills and breaking down walls, doors and windows. Within half an hour the guests had evacuated the ground floor. In another ten minutes the second floor was covered, and then we made for the top floor where we spent the night."

The river Lyn through the town had been culverted to gain land for business premises; this culvert soon choked with flood debris, and the river flowed through the town. Much of the debris was boulders and trees.

Overnight, over 100 buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged along with 29 bridges, and 38 cars were washed out to sea. In total, 34 people died, with a further 420 made homeless.

At the same time, the River Bray at Filleigh also flooded, costing the lives of three Scouts from Manchester who had been camping alongside the river. [ [http://www.filleighvillagehall.org.uk/Filleigh%20Stones.htm Filleigh Village hall Memorial] ]

Similar events had been recorded at Lynmouth in 1607 and 1796. After the 1952 disaster, the village was rebuilt, including diverting the river around the village.

In 2001, a BBC Radio 4 documentary suggested that the events of 1952 were connected to government cloud seeding experiments being conducted in southern England at the time. There does not presently seem to be any direct evidence to support such allegations, but conspiracy theories have been fuelled by rumours of missing or destroyed government documents relating to the experiments. [cite web
title = Rain-making link to killer floods
publisher = BBC News
date = 30 August 2001
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1516880.stm
accessdate = 2008-06-14]

On 16 August 2004 - exactly 52 years later, a similar event happened in Cornwall, when flash floods caused extensive damage to Boscastle, but without loss of life. The hydrological setting of these two villages is very much the same. [cite web
title = Where is the next Boscastle?
publisher = BBC News
date = 7 October 2004
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3719754.stm
accessdate = 2008-06-14]

Twinning

The town of "Lynton and Lynmouth" is twinned with:
*flagicon|France Bénouville, France

Notes

ee also

*List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom
*Lynton

External links

*dmoz|Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Devon/Lynton_and_Lynmouth/|Lynton and Lynmouth
* [http://www.btinternet.com/~john.lerwill/personal/lynboat.htm Article and poem on the Lynton Lifeboat]
* [http://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/the_lynmouth_floods_of_1952_exmoor The Lynmouth Flood of 1952] — Exmoor National Park Authority account
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1516880.stm Possible connections with cloud seeding] (BBC News, 30 August, 2001)
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/16/newsid_2960000/2960180.stm On this day] 16 August, 1952 (BBC)
* [http://www.ramblers.org.uk/INFO/paths/twomoors.html Two Moors Way]
* [http://www.cliffrailwaylynton.co.uk/ Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway]
* [http://www.marineturbines.com/projects.htm Seaflow Project Lynmouth-Seacore]
* [http://www.llama.org.uk/ Lynton & Lynmouth Arts & Music Association]
* [http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/interactive/gallery/lynmouth_foreland.html Lynmouth Foreland Lighthouse]
* [http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1150770480 Video about 1952 flood]