The River Trent valley suffered from a major flood in 1683. The floods followed a lengthy cold period and were formed from melting snow and broken river ice. The ice floes swept away much of Hethbeth or Trent Bridge at Nottingham and the Town Bridge at Newark-on-Trent.
Description
editThe floods followed a lengthy cold period with freezing weather lasting from September 1682 until February 1683.[1] Nottinghamshire suffered regular and heavy snow falls during this period.[2] The thawing of snow and breaking up of river ice caused significant flooding on 5 and 6 February, affecting the entire Trent valley.[3][4]
At this time the Hethbeth or Trent Bridge at Nottingham consisted of more than twenty stone piers covered by a wooden deck.[1][5] The bridge was badly damaged by ice floes moving down the river and much of the northern half was swept away.[6][1]
Downstream at Newark-on-Trent the Town Bridge was also swept away and the riverside fields flooded.[7][8][9] The damage at nearby Holme, Nottinghamshire and North Muskham, Lincolnshire, was witnessed by Thomas Winnard who composed a poem beginning "when heirs and widows hoarding fresh supplies/Bottle up tears wrung from St. Swithin's eyes", Swithin being the patron saint of weather.[9]
Aftermath
editThe Nottingham Corporation appointed a committee to rebuild the bridge.[3] The work, carried out in 1684, installed stone arches. The bridge was shortened to 205 metres (673 ft) and the number of spans reduced to fifteen.[5] The piers of the first five arches, and possibly a further two, were rebuilt completely as part of the works. The remaining piers, which had been rebuilt around the time of the English Civil Wars, were judged to be in satisfactory condition.[3] Two arches from the 1683 reconstruction survive in a modern traffic island near the bridge, which was demolished and rebuilt from 1871.[10]
Newark's Town Bridge had been rebuilt by 1700 with a wooden deck spanning the surviving stone piers.[11]
References
edit- ^ a b c Lowe, Edward Joseph (1870). Natural phenomena and chronology of the seasons. Bell and Daldy. p. 82.
- ^ Smart, Andy (7 December 2018). "The day when Christmas revellers skated on a frozen River Trent". Nottinghamshire Live. Retrieved 8 August 2024.
- ^ a b c Tarbotton, Marriott Ogle (1871). History of the Old Trent Bridge, with a Descriptive Account of the New Bridge, Nottingham. Richard Allen and Son. p. 8.
- ^ Club, Woolhope Naturalists' Field (1871). Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club. Jakeman and Carver. p. 83.
- ^ a b Hall, Marshall G. (15 March 2024). Medieval Bridges of Middle England. Windgather Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-914427-30-5.
- ^ Labrum, E. A. (1994). Civil Engineering Heritage: Eastern and central England. Thomas Telford. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7277-1970-6.
- ^ Fort, Tom (2008). Downstream. Century. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-84605-169-2.
- ^ Britain, Geological Survey of Great (1911). Memoirs of the Geological Survey: England and Wales. ... H.M. Stationery Office. p. 60.
- ^ a b Brown (F.R.S.L.), Cornelius (1879). The Annals of Newark-upon-Trent: Comprising the History, Curiosities, and Antiquities of the Borough. H. Sotheran & Company. p. 195.
- ^ Fisher, Stuart (19 December 2013). British River Navigations: Inland Cuts, Fens, Dikes, Channels and Non-tidal Rivers. A&C Black. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-4729-0084-5.
- ^ Jackson, Sean; Joynes, Stephen; Wood, Harvey. "The River Trent, Newark Island: Drainage and Weather, their Role in the Defence of Newark on Trent during the Third Siege of 1645 – 1646". Clean Rivers Trust. Retrieved 8 August 2024.