Liddesdale Flood of 1846

On the pavement at the corner of Douglas Square and South Hermitage Street there is a stone commemorating a flood which affected Liddesdale many years ago. Recently I was asked for some details of this event which caused devastation, not just in Liddesdale, but over a huge area of Cumberland and the Borders. The cause of the floods was a gigantic thunderstorm which began on the evening of Wednesday 29th July 1846 and continued all night.

The newspaper reports of the time describe flooding in Carlisle, Canonbie, Hawick and Kelso, and Berwickshire, but unfortunately the papers that I have had access to don’t mention Newcastleton.

The Carlisle Journal’s description of the storm was borrowed by the Caledonian Mercury [1] and gives a vivid impression of what happened:

Wednesday evening closed with an unwonted gloom at an early hour. The sky was murky – the air still and heavy. The skies were occasionally lit up by gleams of electric light, and it was soon evident that a fearful storm was about to burst upon us. The expectation was fulfilled. Each successive flash of fire became more vivid, and the distant rumbling of thunder waxed deeper and deeper till brattle followed brattle like the discharge of heavy artillery above the town. The storm was of long duration; commencing soon after seven o’clock , it continued with but short intermissions till near four o’clock on Thursday morning.

The storm was evidently moving slowly north east, reaching Hawick a couple of hours later. There, the horizon started to become overcast between 7 and 8pm, the torrential rain started between 8 and 9pm and continued without a break for almost three hours. Shortly after midnight the Slitrig burst its banks, pouring through Silver Street and down into the Sandbed where it was about 5 feet deep. Several bridges were swept away and a 12 foot deep hole scooped out of the road at the Mill Port[2] .

How the flood affected Newcastleton does not feature in the Edinburgh newspapers, but John Byers tells the story in his book Liddesdale: historical and descriptive[3] His information is based on some letters which were then in the possession of Mr Wilson ( which Mr Wilson would that have been, and what has become of the letters?). John Byers also refers to stories which were still being talked about in the village a hundred years after the event. The Liddel rose to an unprecedented height and water poured down the main street. Houses on the Waterside were worst affected, as indeed they are today.

One of the letters, read: The last Wednesday night, 29th July, there was a tremendous thunder, fire and rain, and the water rose to a height unknown ever before this hundred years. I cannot describe the desolation in Liddesdale and downward the country. All the Watergate land is ravaged, while fields, whether corn, or potatoes or grass, whether cut or uncut, are nearly destroyed. The loss in this parish in house, roads and waterbanks is estimated at 5 or 6000 £. The Whitrope Bar house is all gone, and the burn running on the very spot where the house stood. The Leahaugh holm is completely destroyed; dykes and the banks are gone, and a part of the cottage is broken down and a part of the cottage is broken down. Redheugh holm is completely ravaged. Many bridges on the road to Hawick are clean run away, and many [travellers] come down the top of the Rig[4]. Most of our furniture was floating in the water. Mr Black[5] came wading up nearly the middle urging us to flee to his house for shelter, but owing to the crying of the Bairns and other causes it was not practicable. I will set up a stone of remembrance while I live that we had not lost our lives.

John Byers does not say who wrote this letter. And if anyone can shed any light on when the ‘stone of remembrance’ was set up, and who set it up, I would be most interested to hear.

The Caledonian Mercury[6] tells us that the Liddel came down in great force, spreading destruction on the fine holm on the English side near Newton [i.e. near Riddings] and a great number of cattle and sheep were washed away. The inhabitants of a cottage ‘betwixt the Esk and the Liddel’ near Canonbie had to escape through the roof of their house. Only one fatality was reported. A group of men were returning to Canonbie on horseback from the Langholm Commonriding. In the darkness they failed to notice that the Byre Burn bridge had been swept away and all five of them plunged into the river. Sadly one of the men failed to make it to the bank. This tragedy could perhaps have been avoided if the warning given by some earlier travellers had been heeded. They had reported the collapse of the bridge to a local inn, but no-one had done anything about it.[7]

Finally, the Edinburgh Evening Courant[8] includes a curious reference to a coal mine flooded by water ‘forced back from the Liddle in consequence of the turnpike bridge being choked up’. Which bridge and which coal mine? Coal was mined at the Byre Burn, but that could scarcely have been affected by water from the Liddel. The most likely location is at Penton Mill, just upstream from Penton Bridge, where a group of coal seams varying in thickness from 18 to 29 inches were mined[9]. Andrew Bethune