Jackson's Oxford Journal (15/Dec/1810) - Inundation

The following is a transcription of a historic newspaper article and may contain occasional errors. If the article was published prior to 1 June 1957, then the text is likely in the Public Domain.

Inundation. — About one in the morning of the 29th ult, the Driggle Reservoir[1] , at the top of Stanedge, in Marsden, about nine miles west of Huddersfield, burst, and the water flowing in an easterly direction, inundated the whole of the adjoining valley. This reservoir, formed for the purpose of supplying the Huddersfield Canal, covered about 28 acres of land, and such was the destructive impetuosity of the flood, that it swept away a cottage, occupied by James Scoldfield, standing on the declivity of a hill, and his wife and four children perished in the flood. Rushing forward in its fatal course, the water advanced to the mill of Messrs. Horsfalls, and completely inundated the house of the miller, James Balmforth, that himself and his wife were floated out of their beds ; he seized the stone-work in the window, and for some time held his wife in his embrace ; but she was at length forced from him, and the next morning her lifeless body was taken up at a place called the Paddock, two miles from Huddersfield ; the husband, however, kept hold of the window till the water subsided, and by that means preserved his life. Besides these fatal accidents, in which six lives were lost, many others, of less consequence occurred.


Notes and References

  1. The Diggle Moss Reservoir failed on the night of 29 November 1810 after heavy rainfall.