64
The East Anglian Earthquake.
direction. The tower is reported to have been slightly cracked,
and Duke's farm-house was cracked in several places and the
chimneys thrown down.
Turning eastward again towards Abberton, the adjoining
parish of Langenhoe suffered severely. But few specific
accounts have been received from this district, and the
following details are derived mainly from my own note-book,
Mr. Symons' report and field-book, and the local newspapers.
Langenhoe.—In this straggling village hardly a house
escaped damage, the most destruction having occurred
towards the W., where it approaches Abberton and Peldon.
The church of St. Andrew, a small and ancient building
with a stone tower, said by some archaeologists to be of
Norman date, was most seriously damaged, the eastern
battlements crashing through the roof of the nave into the
gallery below, leaving a large gap in the roof. The western
battlements fell into the churchyard, and in the western face
of the tower an almost perpendicular crack ran from top to
bottom (an old crack partially reopened). The walls of the
nave were much cracked and warped, the chancel roof
untiled, the wreckage falling through on to the pulpit and
pews, and the upper part of the gable shaken down. The
brickwork of a small porch on the north side of the church
was also cracked on each side of and above the doorway.
The extreme age of the tower, which appeared to have been
much patched, must have contributed to the destruction at
this church. The tower was somewhat bulged and out of the
perpendicular by subsidence before the shock; the pictures
given in some of the local papers, showing a strong inclination
of the tower towards the south, were much exaggerated.
At the Rectory the walls and ceilings were much cracked
and the chimney-stacks damaged to such an extent that they
had all to be taken down. The Rev. W. Parkinson, to whom
I am indebted for many of the following details, informs me
that the twist of the chimneys appeared to be from N. to S.30
30 Mr. J. E. Taylor, F.G.S., of the Ipswich Museum, who visited this
district on April 23rd, states that " the twist had come from the south,
for the face of the chimneys which had previously looked in that direc-