The Tornado at Saracens Head
July 1915 saw a terrible series of tornados hit Saracen’s Head with dramatic accounts reported:
Stacks were blown clean away, horses were spun round and round like toys, hen coops went flying over houses as if possessed of evil spirits, roofs were stripped of their tiles in a few seconds, and water was literally scooped from the ponds and carried high in the air. For the space of a quarter of an hour, in fact, the people, with tremblings of fear, began to think that there was going to be no Saracens Head left.
A field was struck (as a villager put it) by lightning or something, and a whirlwind came along to perform with anything that was movable. In Mr. Andrew’s orchard the trees seemed to want to lift their roots out of the earth. Some hen coops, which were in the way of this whirlwind, described circles until they were well above the house tops. A stack of straw, containing probably four or five tons, was soon in shreds and joining the demonstration. Mr. and Mrs. Chouler at the School House, had one or two exciting experiences. There were some baby clothes hanging out to dry, and these were torn from the line and taken away. Mr. and Mrs. Chouler presumably escaped a tour through the atmosphere by happening to be a little distance away from the edge of the whirlwind. The roof of a shed fastened to a massive baulk of timber, after circling round aeroplane fashion, fell to the rear of the premises. Mr. J. Bailey had a still more alarming time. The whole of his premises were severely bombarded with pieces of Mr. Andrew’s stack and coops; whilst Mr. E.P. Waite farmer, is still looking for his cap, but that is a minor matter compared to his other losses. A cart placed ready for washing was twisted right round and thrown against the door several yards away. A window which faced the wind was blown in. Huge branches were torn off walnut trees, and a row of poplar trees were left nothing more than bare poles. The whirlwind was no respecter of persons, and many performed unrehearsed feats, which they hope they will never be called upon to do again. A lad named Slator, who was in charge of a couple of horses and a wagon, belonging to Mr. Wiseman, was lifted up and unceremoniously deposited in a dyke. He is still inclined to rub himself in the place that bumped.
There are also stories told of pairs of horses bolting for all they were worth to outdo the whirlwind as if in a race. A couple belonging to Mr. Twell, were among these competitors.
A cottage occupied by Mr. Speed was dismantled. It could not have been completely stripped of its roof if workmen had been busy on it for a whole day. Mrs. Speed, who was inside, thought Judgement Day had arrived.
The Clough River was perhaps the saviour of Saracens Head. Here the whirlwind if it had not spent out its forces was either broken up or drowned. Certain it was that the whirlwind was lost at the river, and people think it a very good loss too. They have since been engaged in picking up fragments of the damage done, but not as mementoes. They think the quicker they can forget this visitation the better.
Mr. J. Parsons, of Boston Road, Holbeach, described what he saw as follows:
About a quarter past one I was about a quarter of a mile from the scene of the occurrence. There were some very large drops of rain, which I thought heralded the approach of a particularly heavy thunder storm. I watched for a few minutes, and then went into the house. A few seconds later I heard what seemed to be like the approach of dozens of aeroplanes, the noise commencing with a distant hum, and rapidly increasing in volume until it was almost deafening. I ran outside and then immediately saw what looked to be about 400 yards away, high in the sky, something like water spouts dropping from the sky. It was about half-way down. There were two inverted cones, and these seem to meet off Saracens Head. Looking lower down towards the end of the cone, I could see great branches of trees caught up and floating about 200 feet in the air. They were whirling round and round, and with each spiral they seemed to go higher and higher, until the outer ring of the whirl, when they fell. The wind followed the course of the road from Saracens Head, and seemed to come right over the top of Mr. Speed’s cottage. I could see the tiles lifted off just as if they were being sucked up by a huge suction pump. They were heavy, however, and only rose about twelve feet, falling all round the house. Still advancing for another 100 yards, there was a wagon and four horses. The two first horses were completely twisted round, whilst the men’s overcoats and things in the wagon were lifted out and disappeared in the sky. Another 50 yards further on at the pair of houses we are building, the wind lifted the galvanised sheeting and scaffolding and scattered it about all over the place. Yet another 20 yards further on it took the roof off a hovel, and deposited it in the road, and still further on in a potato field, the wind dug the potatoes right up, making a place nearly a foot deep. On the opposite side of the road, there were two clover stacks, belonging to Mr. J.H. Carter, and the two roofs were taken completely off and whirled over the fields and lost. It finally exhausted itself over the Clough River. I saw the wind take the top off a tree, and whirl it a distance of 250 yards.
Many years ago I was shown a map by an amateur meteorologist. He had studied historic tornados around the Spalding and Holbeach area. Over hundreds of years of documented tornados you could see a pattern on the map with certain hotspots: for example Spalding golf course and close to the river Welland near Surfleet; Moulton Mill and Moulton churchyard area; and Saracens Head. Whether these are patterns of accident I do not know, but what was most notable to me was the specific area between Moulton Mill and Moulton church, although a small area, seven accounts of tornados over time were recorded in this very small area.
I have only ever seen two water spout tornados in South Lincolnshire. The largest I witnessed from my Spalding home was apparently over Spalding golf course and headed parallel to the river Welland before petering out in the Wash. The other I witnessed from Whaplode Drove.
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