Bristol Channel floods 1607: Encyclopedia - Bristol Channel floods 1607

Bristol Channel floods, 1607

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.

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.

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.

Bristol Channel floods 1607 - 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.

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.

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 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.

Bristol Channel floods 1607 - 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.

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.

See also

• List of natural disasters in the United Kingdom
• List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll
• Geology of the United Kingdom

Category: Disasters in the United Kingdom

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