124 THE GREAT STORM OF MIDSUMMER DAY, 1897.
five hours afterwards. All the skylights over the swimming-bath were more
or less destroyed." 4
Great and Little Baddow, Galleywood and Sandon. The general features of
the destruction to crops were similar in these districts to those already recorded
elsewhere. The hail was remarkable. At Great Baddow all the windows
with a western aspect suffered. Seventy diamond panes in an ancient window
at the Church were broken ; and at the Vicarage, Baddow-house, Pontlands,
the Hall, Mascalls, and other principal houses much glass was shattered.
The crops have also suffered considerably. At Cuckoo's Farm, Little Baddow,
at 3 p.m., the hailstones were the size of a hen's egg—they smashed a stable
window, and so pelted the horse that he nearly went mad ; a stone struck a
chicken dead at one blow. On Saturday (about 48 hours after they had fallen)
Mr. Mecklenburg found in a ditch hailstones which weighed more than half
an ounce.
Mr. C. Smoothy (Old Riffham's Farm, Little Baddow) says that the
hailstones not merely came through his windows, but cut the blinds to shreds.
After they had been lying some time, he measured one 61/2 inches in circumference.
Mr. Croxton was on a load of hay, near Byford's Mill, when the storm over-
took him, and a "lump of hail, more than an inch across, struck me on the
side of the head, denting in my straw hat and raising a lump on my skull.
My head is sore yet." Mr. C. Smoothy reports :—"I am sorry to say that
the storm here was very destructive to game. We picked up three old
partridges, and several young, in a field adjoining my house, killed by the hail,
evidently while brooding their young. Some of them were cut as if they had
been struck by a bullet. From the severity of the storm, which lasted about
half an hour, I am sure no birds could live in the open. This storm has killed
hundreds. I am afraid that sportsmen will be greatly disappointed in Sep-
tember. Old birds as well as young must have been killed unless they were
well sheltered by fence or wood. There were over 200 fowls killed in the
village of Little Baddow.''
At Great Baddow, six elms were blown down, four in one group. On
Great Sir Hughes Farm the top was taken off a tree and dropped on to the
lodge roof, bringing down the chimney and breaking the roof in.
Danbury. The appearance of Danbury village was such as one might
expect it to present after a bombardment. On either side of the main road
the cottages were in a dilapidated state. Most of the cottagers nailed sacks
across their windows, for in some instances the frames were destroyed as well
as the glass. All the crops suffered terribly. The poor people's gardens were
wrecked. In one, the flower beds contained a mass of broken plant-stems
and withered flowers ; in another, of a more utilitarian character, what was
4 In the words of the Essex Standard it is stated that "in various parts of the
central district of Essex, some of the hail stones that fell on June 24 contained particles of a
metallic substance. The phenomenon deserves investigation as suggesting a possible con-
nection between meteoric dust showers and the formation of hail."" In this regard it will
be well to give (for what it is worth) the report of an occurrence which took place in
Marriage's Square, New Street, Chelmsford, during the progress of the storm. "Mrs.
Plaistow and two friends noticed, amid the crashing of the glass in the windows of the house,
an appearance in the sky like a bright star, which shot across to the house, and scattered
small pieces of stone of a flinty nature on to the carpets and rugs of the front rooms both
upstairs and down. Upon examination these proved to be so hot that they could not be held
in the hand, and numerous small holes were burnt in the carpet. In the house adjoining,
occupied by Miss Eliza Holbrook, a similar occurrence was experienced, though not on so
large a scale." (Essex County Chronicle).