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On 30 January 1607 (New style) the Bristol Channel floods resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, with houses and villages swept away, farmland inundated and livestock destroyed, wrecking the local economy along the coasts of the Bristol Channel, England. January 30 is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Events January 20 - Tidal wave swept along the Bristol Channel, killing 2000 people. ...
Old Style or O.S. is a designation indicating that a date conforms to the Julian calendar, formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar, currently in use in most countries. ...
The location of the Bristol Channel The Severn Bridge and Bristol Channel, looking northwestward from England towards Wales The Bristol Channel coast at Ilfracombe, North Devon, looking west towards Lee Bay The Bristol Channel is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from South West...
Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification - by Athelstan AD 927 Area - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK) 50,346 sq mi Population - 2005 est. ...
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 from the coast, were also affected. Motto: (Welsh for Wales forever) Anthem: Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff Official language(s) Welsh, English Government Constitutional monarchy - Queen Queen Elizabeth II - Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair MP - First Minister Rhodri Morgan AM Unification - by Gruffudd ap Llywelyn 1056 Area - Total 20,779...
Laugharne (Welsh: Talacharn) is a town in Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Taf. ...
Carmarthenshire (Welsh: ) is a county in Wales. ...
Chepstow or the ham sandwch is my teacher Mr. ...
Cardiff (English: Welsh: ) is the capital of Wales and its largest city. ...
The view towards Brent Knoll from Glastonbury Tor. ...
Glastonbury Tor is a teardrop-shaped hill at Glastonbury, Somerset, England, with its only standing architectural feature the roofless St Michaels Tower of the former church. ...
There remain plaques up to 8ft 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. A foot (plural: feet) is any of several old units of distance or length, measuring around a quarter to a third of a meter. ...
Possible causes
The cause of the flood remains disputed.
Traditionally it had long been believed that the floods were caused by a combination of meteorological extremes and tidal peaks when a flood hit the shores of the channel. There was indeed an unusually high tide at the time in question. Look up flood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Satellite image of Hurricane Hugo with a polar low visible at the top of the image. ...
The tide is the cyclic rising and falling of Earths ocean surface caused by the tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun acting on the Earth. ...
Look up flood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
However a research paper published in the journal Archaeology in the Severn Estuary [1] in 2002 following investigations by Professor Simon Haslett, from Bath Spa University College, and Australian geologist Ted Bryant, from the University of Wollongong, proposed that the flooding was caused by a tsunami. For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...
For other uses, see Bath (disambiguation). ...
Wollongong is an industrial city located on the eastern coast of Australia in the state of New South Wales. ...
The tsunami that struck Malé in the Maldives on December 26, 2004. ...
The BBC made a programme exploring the theory (The Killer Wave of 1607) as part of the Timewatch series. Although made prior to the 2004 tsunami disaster, it was not broadcast until 2 April 2005. The timing of the broadcast led some to wrongly suggest that the notion of a tsunami in 1607 was simply speculation following the 2004 tsunami disaster. The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ...
Timewatch is a long running television series produced by the BBC. It presents a broad range of historical investigations focusing forgotten events or forgotten aspects of major events. ...
The tsunami caused by the December 26, 2004 earthquake strikes Ao Nang, Thailand. ...
April 2 is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 273 days remaining. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The British Geological Survey has suggested that as there is no evidence of a landslide off the continental shelf, a tsunami would most likely have been caused by an earthquake on a known unstable fault off the coast of Ireland, causing the vertical displacement of the sea floor. The British Geological Survey is a publicly-funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. ...
Fault in metamorphosed strata near Adelaide, Australia Geologic faults or simply faults are planar rock fractures which show evidence of relative movement. ...
Evidence Haslett and Bryant found evidence including massive boulders that had been displaced up the beach by enormous force; a layer up to 20 cm thick composed of sand, shells and stones within an otherwise constant deposit of mud that was found in boreholes from Devon to Gloucestershire and the Gower Peninsula; and rock erosion characteristic of high water velocities throughout the Severn Estuary. Devon is a large county in South West England, bordered by Cornwall to the west, Dorset and Somerset to the east. ...
Gloucestershire (pronounced ; GLOSS-ter-sher) is a county in South West England. ...
Rhossili Beach on the Gower peninsula of South Wales The Gower peninsula (Welsh: Gŵyr) is one of the UKs major tourist attractions and is the best-known district in Wales after Snowdonia. ...
The location of the Bristol Channel The Severn Bridge and Bristol Channel, looking northwestward from England towards Wales The Bristol Channel coast at Ilfracombe, North Devon, looking west towards Lee Bay The Bristol Channel is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from South West...
Written evidence from the time describes events that were uncannily similar to the tragedies that unfolded in South East Asia, including a wave of water that rushed in faster than men could run, a crowd of people who stood and watched the wave coming towards them until it was too late to run, and the sea receding before the wave arrived.
However, there are also similarities to descriptions of the 1953 floods in East Anglia, which was caused by a storm surge. Also, the original sources frequently refer to the high spring tide and strong winds from the south west - classic conditions for a storm surge. The flooding described in Norfolk on the night of the same date is hard to explain as a tsunami.
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