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Boy Scouts' Narrow Escape - camp flooded in early morning hours.
Loughborough Monitor and Herald - August 10th 1922
The district around Quorn and Barrow has been badly hit by the floods. On Tuesday morning, a "Monitor and Herald" representative attempted to motor through the district, but found Barrow, Sileby and Cossington unreachable, only the high-road from Quorn to Loughborough being negotiable.
A party of seven Lutterworth B.P Scouts camping on the Barrow Flats had a narrow escape from drowning in the early hours of Tuesday morning. They were the first to be warned of the coming deluge, about 3 o'clock in the morning, and were awakened by the water lifting their beds, and as the Chief Scout said to our representative "It came in on us like a tide." The whole party had to make a hurried departure to Quorn, where they were accommodated in the Methodist Schoolroom and in private houses. All the Scouts could save was a chest of drawers, their effects and utensils being lost in the flood, and on Tuesday only the tops of the tents were visible above the water.
In Mr Halford's house on the Flats, close by the scout camp, the family spent most of Tuesday living upstairs. They were unable to open the door or get out, for the lower storey was entirely flooded, and water was about 4ft deep on the Barrow road, where scarcely a hedge or fence could be seen above the surface.
In the village of Quorn itself, there were other cases of enforced confinement. Mr J Storer, the White Hart Inn*, found his ground floor covered to a depth of several feet, and could not get out of the house, and Mr Armston and his family next door, had an anxious time, the water coming right up to his steps. This part of the village was badly inundated, as the stream by the Green broke bounds, submerged the newly built retaining wall, and covered the steps of the War Memorial. Had it not been for this wall half the village would have been submerged. As it was, the flood extended a great distance up Chaveney Road, and almost swamped the Royal Oak Inn, and the station was thus only reachable from the Loughborough end until late in the afternoon, when the water began to subside.
All around the lands were one vast sea. Barrow was only reachable by the railway track. Our representative succeeded in securing a punt, and went out along by the track to investigate the damage to outlying cowsheds, and sheep pens, all under water, along with the hedges. The cattle had struggled onto the track, and higher land, but the "Monitor" man found three dead sheep and a number of fowls floating about by the railroad. They had obviously tried to make for it, but the flood had been too swift for them.
Farmers do not report a great mortality amongst live stock, and there are not many corn crops damaged, few being in the river valley.
At the Barrow boathouse the river rose so high that some of the boats were rammed under the vaulting of the bridge, the water having risen to the spring of the arch, well over the tops of the piers. The Mountsorrel boating station, at the White Swan Inn found its goods stranded, and the boathouse, being some distance from the inn, a number of people in bathing costumes were observed on Tuesday morning getting the boats into safety.
This was the worst flood in the district since that of 42 years ago, when Quorn was greatly damaged and a man was drowned.
*This may be a reference to the White Horse Inn which was known to flood frequently
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Submitted on: |
2011-07-12 |
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Submitted by: |
Kathryn Paterson |
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Artefact ID: |
1296 |
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Artefact URL: |
www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=1296 |
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