Lytham St.Annes Coat of Arms

 
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Lytham St.Annes, Lancashire, England
 

 

Thunder & Lightning in Lancashire, May, 1825

 

In a thunder-storm, in the afternoon of the ?6th? inst. as Peter Brown, stone-mason (late of this town) [Lancaster] was sheltering, with some other workmen, in a back kitchen, at Rigmaiden [Rigmaden], near Kirkby Lonsdale, he was killed by the lightning. He was 32 years of age, and has left a widow and several children to lament his loss.

On the same afternoon, a man of the name of Coupe was killed by the lightning, whilst sheltering under a turf-stack, at Winmarleigh, near Garstang. During the same storm, the windows of the Town-Hall, at Garstang, were broken by the lightning.

Thunder-Storm at Preston and Wigan.

Tuesday week, these two places and their neighbourhoods were visited by vivid lightning and heavy claps of thunder, although of short duration.— A young female, while engaged ironing opposite a window in Theatre- street, Preston, was struck blind for three hours, but we are happy to hear that her sight is now perfectly recovered.

Lytham and its neighbourhood were also visited with the storm on the same day and several trees were split by the electric fluid near the residence of Joseph Benbow, Esq. [steward for the Clifton family of Lytham Hall].

Westwood House, near Wigan, the seat of Charles Walmsley, Esq. was struck with the electric fluid, about 11 o'clock in the forenoon; stones and bricks were thrown 20 or 30 yards from the chimney shaft; but the only internal damage sustained was a small rent in the chimney shaft over the fire-place, and the total destruction of a picture of the late Lord Chancellor Camden, placed there.

A cow was killed in Haugh, belonging to a person in the employ of the Earl of Balcarras.

A terrific storm of thunder and lightning passed over Carlisle on Friday evening, the 6th inst., about five o'clock. The lightning flashed in quick succession, and the thunder roared must awfully. The electric fluid entered the kitchen of Mr. Joseph Ferguson, in Fisher-street, by the window, broke several panes of glass, knocked down one servant girl and stupified another, forced its way through the ceiling, breaking up a hearth-stone in the room above, and finally went off by the chimney. In the Swifts, near that city, two sheep were struck; and a great variety of damage was sustained in different parts of the neighbourhood.

 Lancaster Gazette - Saturday 14 May 1825 p.3