THIS IS FINDON — www.findonvillage.com created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

FINDON'S CHRISTMAS IN 1794  

Copyright Valerie Martin 2005

First published in the Findon News in December 2005

Christmas was once a time for sitting around a log fire and sharing tales from the past and bringing to life the days of old.

Towards the end of December, a short time before Christmas over two centuries ago, there was a snowfall in Findon with spiralling flakes from a sky clogged with clouds. The frost, which followed, lasted all over the Christmas period of 1794 and into the New Year.  It continued for some thirteen weeks. Findon’s population at the time boasted some 380 inhabitants. The community was situated on the main east-west route passing through Sussex and would have made it much less isolated than many other eighteenth century villages.

At one point there was a partial thaw and bright sunlight and much milder temperatures offered the winter-battered villagers a beguiling touch of spring, even though they knew it could not last. The rapid melting brought with it an inundation as never before witnessed in Findon. At first the water softly trickled, dripped and pattered and made little liquid noises, then it drummed steadily and made pools. The sound of tinkling water was everywhere running from the high ground on Cissbury Ring. The ground was so hard that the water from the melted snow could not penetrate into the earth. Snow slithered and cascaded, and rushed in torrents as water sped down the valley at considerable speed.

Communities with the most to fear from thaw floods are those, like Findon, where heavy snow is infrequent and drainage usually keeps pace with rainfall. However, in the abnormally snowy winter, this resulted in a far greater mass of water from the inevitable thaw, which rushed from Cissbury Ring downwards passed Nepcote Green to the valley.

Wind blew down the main street of Findon in desolate gusts and grey clouds hurried past. The ground was still frozen very hard, and the water descended so rapidly that there were streams of great depth in the valley area, and the current was so strong that it did a great deal of damage. The water flooded the cellars of the village properties and streamed down the main highway.

At the Cissbury estate, the torrent gushed down from the valley east of the main house and immersed the cellars at the property and sped down over the Worthing-London road. A farm stood on the site of The Vale to the south of the village on the highway leading to the coast, and the force of the floodwater converged on the drenched and sodden farmyard. It became deep enough to envelop the stables and one of the farm horses was drowned. This property was called Limbers Farm in those days and probably the older buildings on the site today incorporate some of the old farm.

Eventually the deluge drained away and left the main Findon street full of undulating sludge; a sticky mess of mud and water.

The weather was so bad at the beginning of 1795 that the Findon farmers found ploughing was impracticable and could not be undertaken until March. As in other Sussex downland parishes, the type of farming around 1795 was sheep/corn husbandry. Cereal crops were grown and flocks of sheep were kept on the hillside during the day and brought down at night where they provided manure for the fields.

The villagers gradually settled back to their normal routines and looked forward to the summer of 1795.

Continue if you would like to read Winter Memories of Deep Snow.

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