THE 1903 Floods saw huge damage to Burnham’s seafront with the jetty undermined and large parts of the sea wall flung into the road.

Pictures taken at the time reveal timbers and rocks spread across the streets and the bandstand built a year earlier battered.

Burnham and Highbridge Weekly News:

NEMESIS: Beach huts in Burnham as the storm brought down the curtain on genteel bathing

This elegant structure was demolished in 1911 to make way eventually for the pier that stands in its place.

Opposite the band stand was the school. The Victorian building has long since gone and has been replaced with flats while the school has been relocated.

Historian Robert Thomas of Highbridge said: “The sea carried considerable quantities of debris on the Station Field and further south it washed a great deal of the fronting sand-hills onto the west facing fields of Pillsmouth Farm, rendering the land useless for agriculture for considerable time.”

“Extensive flooding as a result of inundation by had been the common experience of those inhabiting the West Somerset littoral from immemorial. There are contemporary accounts of the tremendous havoc wrought by the great storm of 1607 when approximately 400 square miles of central Somerset were flooded.”

Wikipedia notes: “The coasts of Devon and the Somerset Levels as far inland as Glastonbury Tor, 14 miles (23km) from the coast, were also affected.

“The sea wall at Burnham-on-Sea gave way, and the water flowed over the low lying levels and moors. Thirty villages in Somerset were affected, including Brean which was “swallowed up” and where seven out of the nine houses were destroyed with 26 of the inhabitants dying.

“For ten days the Church of All Saints at Kingston Seymour, near Weston-super-Mare, was filled with water to a depth of 5 feet (1.5m). A chiselled mark remains showing that the maximum height of the water was 7.74 metres above sea level.”

Burnham and Highbridge Weekly News:

BATTERED: the town’s jetty was severely hit in the 1903 storm

Various theories have been put forward to explain the flooding which took place before reliable records and of course local newspapers existed.

One is of tsunami created by an earthquake under the sea off the coast of Wales or Ireland, while others include a storm surge similar to the one that devastated parts of Norfolk in 1953 in which many people died. Storm surges are a combination of atmospheric pressure, heavy rain, a hide tide and strong winds creating the so-called perfect storm.

Whatever caused the 1607 floods the potential for another disaster is still within the whims of nature and Burnham and Highbridge could still face massive floods one winter’s day.

Do you remember the floods of 1981? Do you have stories and photographs of the time? We are always interested to hear from readers about times past - so email harry.mottram@nqsw.co.uk

 

Burnham and Highbridge Weekly News:

WET: The floods caused by the 1903 storm hit New Road in West Huntspill