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Winter weather warnings forecasting snow tend to
raise public alarm yet heavy falls rarely disrupt our daily lives making
those occasions when they do all the more memorable such as the blizzard
which occurred 100 years ago when the town was isolated for three days and
public services severely disrupted.
The extreme conditions began on Tuesday 28th March 1916, cutting telephone
and telegraph services and halting the trains in and out of the town,
leaving passengers stranded at the railway station, then situated at the
Red Hall in South Street, while the mail cart could not get through
because the roads were blocked to all traffic by deep snow drifts.
The blizzard raged for two days with high winds and driving snow which
covered the frontage of many buildings such as here in West Street
overlooking what was then the market place, now the town centre, where the
street scene took on a ghostly appearance. The shop on the left at No 1
was occupied by Mills & Baxter, chemists, and headquarters of the town’s
aerated water business, now by Eckfords, the estate agents, while the
building on the right at No 3 was occupied by D H Horn, tailor and
outfitter, but since demolished to make way for Boots the Chemist. |
