After the flood...

The town of Winsford had suffered with floods mainly in the 1880s and I have covered those previously.

Older residents who remembered those floods and who were around in the 1940s stated that the '46 flood was far more severe.

The morning of Friday, February 8 had started in a gloomy fashion. In fact there had been unprecedented rainfall during January and into February when the equivalent of a month's rainfall fell in one day.

A fortnight prior to the flood saw five inches of rain falling in the Weaver and Dane valleys and a further two inches on the Thursday and Friday of the week of the flood.

The result was that the Weaver rose 11ft above its normal level. The sluices that controlled the river were opened 20 hours before the peak of the flood.

The billboard outside the Magnet cinema in Weaver Street the week previous had advertised the film 'The Town Went Wild' starring Freddie Bartholomew. This was to ring true in Winsford that fateful weekend.

The staff at the ICI central offices were the first to be evacuated and by 3pm on Friday, the waters had reached the then town centre.

By evening, the flood was totally out of control and John Needham, the landlord of the Red Lion, on opening his cellar, found the barrels floating in six feet of water. The same scene was repeated at the Oak and the Ark.

The flood also reached a quarter of a mile along New Road and Weaver Street was also affected.

The Magnet cinema was next to this building which was also flooded with all but the rear six rows of seats under water.

By dusk, the depth of water on the roads was upwards of four feet. Small boats moored on the banks of Winsford Flash were torn from their moorings, carried downstream and smashed on the bridge.

People were driven from their homes and shops when the sea of water rushed into the cellars and overflowed into the ground floors.

Gas mains quickly flooded and phones were cut off.

The main Post Office, next to Woolworths, was seriously damaged with cracks appearing in the walls as staff quickly removed documents to the top floor, afterwards catching fish that came in through the front door.

The town was effectively cut in two by the waters as cars were stranded with flooded engines and motor lorries were used to tow them away and to carry foot passengers and prams to safety.

Those who remained in their houses found that the water stopped rising about midnight.

The Co-op was especially hard hit and thousands of documents had to be removed.

The flood began to go down at 9am but the bottom end of the town still had two feet of water covering it.

The Co-op bake house was closed, allowing the Country Maid Bakery of Chester to supply some 5,000 loaves to the town on Saturday morning.

The gas company had the supply back on by Sunday.

Two of the Market Place pubs were open by Saturday and water marks close by revealed that the flood had been four feet deep.

Boats were left lying in fields by the side of the Flashes.

As the water continued to subside, thousands of roach and perch were left stranded and gulls gorged themselves on the fish in the meadows.

It was far worse in Northwich as the Guardian reported. The Dane overflowed by noon on Friday, carrying trees and everything else before it. By 1pm, the flood reached High Street, Dane Street and London Road.

The Weaver could not cope with the torrent pouring out from the Dane where they met and the town was flooded at Baron's Quay and Watling Street.

Buses ploughed bravely through the waters which by teatime covered the bottom of Witton Street and had flowed into the market hall.

Staff at the Regal Cinema were stranded from 1pm Friday until 4am Saturday.

The damage at Middlewich was less but nevertheless the Dane and the canal - separated by a large field - were joined by a torrent of water. The sewer beds completely disappeared.

As an aftermath, officials of the Weaver Navigation pointed out that as the Weaver sluices, locks and weirs were submerged by floodwater 'any additional facilities would have served no useful purpose'.

An amusing postscript to the disaster occurred on the Monday after the flood.

In the 1880s deluge, boats charged 1d a trip to ferry townsfolk across the floods and in 1946 the Winsford trait of being canny (for want of a better word) shone through again as a large queue of Winsfordians formed outside Mr Mullock's drapers shop at 26 High Street to buy flood damaged clothes.

If anyone has any pictures of the flood or any more stories, I would love to see them.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.