There have been many hard winters in the past, often followed by the Trent flooding at Sawley.
In 1607 the Trent was frozen hard enough for a horse and rider to cross the ice.
The Great Frost of 1683/84 saw temperatures in central England thought to have to dropped to -30deg C.
After the winter of 1794/95, the floods and broken ice destroyed most of the bridges along the Trent.
The winter of 1813/14 was also severe. We have no records of the weather around Sawley, but in November 1813, Jane Davys, a 70-year old widow in Sawley was holding a candle in her hand when the flame set fire to her clothes. She died from burns a few days later.
In the winters around1880 Daniel Barkham operated a skating ring on the ballast hole known as Sawley Lake, until he fell through the ice and died.
In 1893 the Trent was frozen over thick enough to bear the weight of a horse and cart. When the ice broke up, it demolished the original Long Horse Bridge.
By the 1920s Long Eaton had taken over New Sawley, but not Old Sawley. So, the council snowplough only cleared Tamworth Road as far as the new boundary near Lock Lane.
The winter of 1927/28 was bad. In January 90mph winds uprooted many large trees and damaged buildings, including the former home of Dr John Clifford in Sawley. At the of the month the Trent flooded again. Building had just started in a low-lying part of the village and the foundations were soon flooded.
In 1931 Sawley Lake was the scene of a crime. Samuel Woolley of Hey Street worked for the Midland Railway at Trent Station gas works. One January evening he tied a 7-month-old cat in a sack and, after throwing bricks onto the frozen pond, threw the sack after them. The next morning – 12 hours later – the crying of the cat attracted the attention of a postman, who saw the sack moving on the ice. The postman – Samuel Turner of Birchwood Avenue – retrieved the bag using a clothes prop, but the cat died. Woolley was sent to the magistrates’ court, where an RSPCA inspector said the cat had been found frozen stiff and the tongue was almost severed from it clenching its teeth. Woolley expressed regret that he’d not weighted the bag. The court chairman acknowledged that he didn’t realise the suffering he was causing. He was fined £2 and 2 shillings, or 21 days in prison if he didn’t pay.
1946/47 snow fell somewhere in the country every day for 55 days in a row. Tom Godfrey from Long Eaton was in Cambridge during the freeze, but returned home when the subsequent thaw caused widespread flooding.
In January 1963 a local amateur meteorologist recorded 26 degrees of frost (6deg F, or about -14.5C). The canals were frozen several inches deep and people were walking and skating from Long Eaton to Trent Lock. A man rode a motorbike on the canal near Castle Donington. Men working on the new Roper school were able to walk across the frozen Erewash Canal to reach the building site from Tamworth Road.
On 7th Feb 1969 more snow fell on one day than the previous 3 years put together, with the coldest nighttime temperature since the winter of 1962/63. Over 6 inches of snow were recorded in Long Eaton, with reports of 10 inches in Sawley. The road through Castle Donington soon became impassable, traffic backed up and gritting lorries could not get through. The road was closed for 5 hours and the queue stretched back to Harrington Bridge in Sawley.
And here are some photos from 35 years ago…
