Extract from the
Introduction
(continued)
All floods, in the end, are due to the same basic cause -
too much rain falling on ground which cannot absorb it. But occasionally, owing to the lie of the land and certain other contributory causes, instead of a steady rise in the water level until a river, in the common and misleading phrase, ‘bursts its banks’ and spreads over surrounding countryside, the experience is of a headlong mounting rush of water from high grounds to low, sweeping out everything in its path.
This is what happened at Wray in 1967. It was not a totally isolated incident. Flash floods of such ferocity happen more often than one might think. Indeed, the same flood on the same day sweeping down on the opposite side of Bowland Forest caused more damage, reckoned financially, in Rossendale than in the Lune Valley. The difference was in the human interest, because at Wray a village stood in the way.
Afterwards, the comparison that sprang to many people’s minds was with the Lynmouth disaster of 1952. Another August storm, another network of small becks draining a moorland area, another fierce storm dropping vast quantities of rain on peaty ground already soaked and sponge-like, another descent of many hundreds of feet from the water-shed to the sea, another series of catastrophic surges caused by holdups in the course of the river which then burst through with greater force. The differences however were great, and they were all in Wray’s favour.
The West Lyn’s fall from source to sea was not very different from the Roeburn’s fall from source to the Lune valley, but on the West Lyn by far the greatest drop, some hundreds of feet, is achieved in the last half mile of its course, just as it runs straight down through the middle of the village. The West Lyn, and the East Lyn which joins it, end in the centre of a small gorge-like bay packed with the crowded housing of a bustling holiday resort. The Roeburn, on the other hand, emerges from the hill country to run round the edge of Wray village at the point where its course opens and flattens out. The Lynmouth flood followed a long steady downfall, culminating in a cloudburst of great intensity: it has been estimated that eleven inches of rain fell in 24 hours. The Wray flood was the result of a fierce but short-lived storm. The Lynmouth flood occurred in darkness, and continued unabated for most of the night. The Wray flood occurred at a fortunate time, in daylight, when the men of the village were just returning from work. It roared past, and subsided to a safe level, as quickly as it had risen.
After the flood: the confluence of Hindburn and Roeburn. One back wheel of Bobbie Everett’s car, the rest completely buried, can just be seen sticking out of the further sandbank. Reproduced in the book by kind permission of Lancashire Constabulary/Gerry Forrest.
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Wray Flood: Introductory page
Extract from the Wray Memorial
Extract from the Introduction
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