DR. BENJAMIN ALLEN, OF BRAINTREE. 169
1665.—This was the year of the Pestilence in London ; but, at Braintry and
the country [generally, it came] the year following. . . . At Brentwood and
Halstead, where the water underground is little and apt to fail, it did not catch,
and at Coxal, tho' twice in the town, did not spread.
1680.—A malignant feaver . . . of which [my] sister Marter recovered, but
[my other] sister Everard dyd.
After 1690, Allen began to record, in greater detail, the
weather and the leading characteristics of the various seasons.
He notes especially that all the summers from 1692 to 1698
were cold and wet. Thus, he says of that of
1693.—A strange changeable summer and winter, more [so] than ever
remembered by an old man [living] at Leighs. Fermentative quality of the air
layd aside; liquors [would] not work ; yeast half-a-crown a quart. Hens layd
no eggs ; those that kept 50 hens had not 3 eggs layd in a week.
These seven bad summers came to an end in 1699, which Allen
describes as follows :—
1699.—The first year of the return of warm summers. . . . The farewell
change was with tempest and ended with earthquake ; so this February was a
hurricane and the seventh of February a violent storm of wind from morning till
night. . . . Sept. 23. At Saffron Walden [a wind-rush] blew down trees a
100 yards wide.
This year, he adds, there was great sickness among horses,
so that "ye King could not get horses to go to Newmarket."
In connection with the succession of seven inclement
summers, Mr. John French tells me that, many years ago, he
found, to the best of his recollection, somewhere in Allen's book,
a note (which neither he nor I can find now) to the effect that,
during the whole of one summer, the trees at Black Notley
never came out properly into leaf and there was no fruit. That
something of the kind happened seems probable from the fact
that, on a stone forming part of a window in Black Notley
Church, there is carved a curious tree, having straight forked
branches bearing round fruit, with the date "1699," in contem-
porary figures, immediately below it. This may commemorate
the return of warm summers in the year named, causing the
trees to produce fruit and leaves once more.1
The Great Storm of 1703 is thus noted :—
1703.—November 26. The tempest at sea and land; the like not since Will
Rufus.
1708.—Began with a mild winter ; ended in a long and severely cold winter;
began [at] Christmas, and froze the Thames over more fierce than that
of 1683, and reacht to Rome, so as had not been in 100 years. ... Universal
colds in horses, as in K. W[illiam]'s time. Only mine and one more escaped in
l It seems not improbable that the year 1699 may have been one in. which the elm
trees exhausted themselves by over-seeding and produced few or no leaves till very late
in the year, as in 1909 (see ante, pp. 73-81).