From Gloucestershire Notes and Queries.
| Swarms of Flies at Tewkesbury.----In Notes and Queries (3rd 8. ix. 120) the late Mr. S.R.T. Meyer, then of Gloucester, referring to some MS.materials for a history of the county, gave the following two curious extracts, and asked (but without effect) for a clue to the source, or sources, from which they had been taken:- |
| "On St.Matthias's Day, February 24, 1575, during the time of the fair at Tewkesbury, notwithstanding it was a hard frost, a prodigious swarm of flies and bees came down the river Severn, more than a foot thick, that dammed up all the mills on the river; which occasioned great numbers of men to be employed to dig them out. It was supposed that there was heaped up, within the space of a bow-shot, near an hundred quarters; though no account could ever be come at, or any one who had before seen them, or where they came from." |
| The other is a cutting from an "old London paper" (what paper?) of 1681:- |
| "From Tuxbury they write that, on the 20th past (September), a great Storm of Hail happened there, which was no sooner over, but such Swarms of Flies appeared that the like had not been seen in any modern Age: they continued to fill the Streets for the space of three hours, and then on a suddain tooke wing; and as it were, wrapping themselves in the Wind, passed on to the Eastwards with a humming Noise." |
Some reader of Gloucestershire Notes and Queries may be able to answer the inquiry."
More From Gloucestershire Notes and Queries. Another qusestion and reply.
Question:- APlague of Cockchaffers, A.D.1574. -- I have read (but where, I do not remember) that there are records of the frightful damage done by cockchaffers in various districts as early as the year 1574. It is stated that in that year such immense swarms were driven into the Severn that their bodies choked the mills, and prevented them form being worked. Can anyone refer me to particulars? J.G Reply. -- I would refer your correspondent to my Records of the Seasons, etc., p. 132 under February 24, 1875, where he will find and extract from Hollinshed to this effect:-- After a flood, which was not great at Tewkesbury, there came down the Severn great numbers of flies and beetles a foot thick above the water. The mills thereabout were damned up with them for the space of four days after, and then were cleansed by digging them out with shovels. From whence they came is yet unknown, but the day was cold and a hard frost. Thos.H.Baker. Mer down, Mere.. (These are in fact the exact words from Records of the Seasons, Prices of Agricultural Produce, and Phenomena Observed in the British Isles.Collected by T.H.Baker (1883). In the same paragraph we have:-- February 26th. Between four and six p.m., great earthquakes in York, Worcester, Gloucester, Bristowe, Hereford and in the counties about, which caused the people to run out their houses. Attributed to Hollinshed which was possibly Dyde's source in the following. |
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And similarly.
From Dyde, A History of Tewkesbury 1790.
| On the 24th of July, 1571, being fair-day, such a quantity of bats came floating down the river Avon at this town, that they covered the surface of the water for above a land's length, in heaps more than a foot thick, which so dammed up the mills for three days, that they could not go, 'till the bats were dug out with shovels. Vide Wantner's Papers in the Bodleian Library. |