

The picture above
shows the Bulls Head pub flooded during one of Bacup's many
floods. The River
Irwell was made the receptacle for all solid matters that were
found to be inconvenient or unprofitable. All old building
materials, ashes and cinders from the houses, and from all the steam
engines in the town were poured into he river. The results
were inevitable in that this raised the bed of the river and so
whenever there was a great storm the lower lying areas of Bacup
flooded.
Flood
of 1871
Extracts from Bacup & Rossendale News July 16th 1870

July 1870 saw Bacup flooded when water
reached a height of 5ft-9ins in St James Street. The
afternoon of the flood began as a fine and sultry day and
as the day advanced so the heat did increase and clouds began to
gather from the North. By 2 o'clock the sun was so entirely
hidden by clouds that the mills and shops had to light the gas
lamps. The storm when it burst over the town hit with the
force of that of a tropical storm. Vivid flashes of lightening
were accompanied by cracks of thunder that felt to shook the
very earth. Then came the rain, not in drops or even streams but
in great sheets. The two branches of the river that join
near the Mechanics Institute soon broke their banks and
overflowed. The waters poured down Burnley Road, on one side and
the Rochdale and Todmorden road sides on the other. Bursting
through cellars and the main sewers they quickly laced all
the low lying places of the town under water. In the Todmorden
Road area the mill of Mr Maxwell, known as Vale Mill was
rendered useless. At Albion Mill which is built over the river,
the waters burst through piling loom upon loom breaking iron
supports as if they were matchwood. On the Burnley road the
houses bordering the river were flooded, and the parapet walls
of the bridges washed away along with a machine shop belonging
to Mr Aitken.
Many of the
counters in the shops of St James street, were wrenched from their
moorings and in all the shops the flood reached but inches from the
ceilings. In the midst of all this the gas was extinguished, due to
pipes in the road being broken in all directions. Horses were
swimming about in the streets and carts floated about randomly. A
gentleman's carriage and timbers smashed through windows of
the surrounding houses. At the Waterloo Hotel which is built
over the river the water broke through with such force the boards of
the bar were pulled up and the landlady Mrs Blakely and some of her
regulars had to be hauled up to the higher floors by ropes. With
exception of one mother and child who where in the sitting room and
could not get out. The poor woman appeared at the window and stood
on the ledge with the child in her arms screaming for help. The
Spotland police at this scene came floating down on a hastily built
raft made up of planks and clothes props and succeeded in rescuing
the woman and child along with Mrs Ashworth Taylor and her children.
In Irwell
street, Yorkshire, street St James street, and Back Irwell street
not one piece of pavement was left but all had been swept away
leaving massive holes in their wake. At the other end of St James
street a large bottle of cream of tartar floated out of Mr Maces
shop and floated onto the shelf in Mr Entwistles drapers shop. A few
doors away a widow woman by the name of Taylor lost her life and two
children washed away to the gas yard were saved from drowning.

Opposite the
George and Dragon stood a long stone watering trough which was said
to be as old as the Inn itself this was washed away in the
flood and never recovered. At Mr Utleys shop at the corner of
Union and Irwell Streets the water stood at 4ft 5ins amongst which
Mr Utley was plunging about trying to save his valuable woollen and
ready made goods. Constantly round him swam his brown retriever dog
which showed the utmost anxiety for its master safety, which it
expressed by gently laying hold of him by the arm, and trying to
force him upstairs by pushing its nose against his back. Whilst Mr
Utley kept going upstairs with certain goods it seized any article
that floated past him and followed him upstairs with it. Mr T
Ashworth of the Green Man Inn had two pigs one was drowned and
the other swam down the road into St James street through Mr
Sugden's drapers shop and out into the kitchen whereupon it
swallowed a half pound of butter that had been swept of a shelf. It
then swam in hot pursuit of a cabbage which it caught and
munched up happily.
Flood
of 1881
The flood of Tuesday 5th
July 1881, was accompanied not only by great destruction but the
loss of three lives. During the day the weather had been hot and
oppressive and about six o'clock in the evening there were signs
of a approaching storm. The sky turned to a inky blackness and a
shower fell but soon cleared. Between nine and eleven the
rain began to fall again and by about 11.20 and 11.45 Burnley Road the
streets around the George and Dragon pub, St James Street,
Newchurch-Road, and all the low lying streets and alleys were
caught in the surging flood waters. Atlas Works, Bakers Foundry,
Irwell Mill all suffered massive flood damage. Burnley Road had
the river wall washed away and stones ,doors, grids, in fact
anything that could move was washed away by the flood water. One
of the first people to die during the 1881 floods was a young
girl aged six years called Deborah Sheen the step-daughter of
Emmanuel Cunliffe, a weaver at Broadclough mill and who lived at Underbank.
The child was sleeping at
her grandfathers, Mr Edward Mathews of Stanley Street Burnley Road.
She had virtually lived with him since her father was killed in
a quarry accident shortly after her birth. Hearing the
storm Mr Mathews got up and seeing the cellar was flooded and
the house was beginning to fill he ran with the child in his
arms out of doors and tried to cross the road. He had not gone a
yard before he was taken off his feet and swept down the road as
far as Cropper Street, the water then wrenching the child out of
his arms the body of
Deborah being found afterwards besides Barkers Foundry on
Henrietta Street. The child's body was then taken to the
Waterworks to be identified and then returned home to her
mothers house at Underbank.

The second person to die was that of Mrs
Maria Jackson aged about 50 years of age wife of William Jackson of Waterside.
The Jacksons lived in a cellar dwelling known as
Dawson cottages situated across the road from Waterside Chapel.
At the height of the flood when the water had almost filled
their tiny dwelling William went out to attach a rope to the
railings of the above landing intending to pull his wife
up to safety with the aid of a young man named Hartley. When
half way to the steps however her clothes became tangled in her
legs and she fell into the raging waters, she was washed away by the
current of water right down Burnley Road into Back King Street
were she was found early the following morning. The third
death by drowning was that of Mrs Hannah Renshaw wife of Joseph Renshaw
better known as " Joe Waterworks". Mrs Renshaw was caught by the
surging water as she stepped out of the back door of the
Waterloo Hotel, where she was engaged as a out door servant. She
was carried away and her body was later found by Irwell Mill.

The damage in Bacup was
confined to the areas of Burnley Road, Yorkshire street, Bridge
Street, and St James street with the surrounding streets
such as Union and Back Irwell street being affected. From Weir
down to Bacup the road was awash with strands of red yarn swept
down from the corner dye works. The carriage road for
Broadclough Hall was literally swept away. In the middle of the
storm the gas pipes got flooded and and about 12-30
midnight the gas was extinguished and the town was plunged into
darkness.
September 1935

Heavy thunderstorms caused
mass flooding in Bacup and Stacksteads in September 1935,
streets became rivers as the water swirled down from the
hillsides. At Stacksteads the flooding was fairly extensive the
river assuming proportions of a raging torrent. An incident of
major interest was a landslide on the Bacup to Rochdale
railway line just beyond the borough boundary at Shanter Brow.
What might have been a serious accident was prevented the
actions of a Shawforth man who dashed along the permanent way
and stopped an approaching passenger train. The landslide was
due to the water pouring down the steep embankment above the
railway and many tons of soil and stone were hurled across the
lines, which were covered to a depth of about a yard. The train
service was suspended for a few hours only being resumed on a
single line.
Harold Smith 25 a piano
tuner, who lives not far from the spot at 343, Market Street ,
Shawforth, was the central figure in this exciting episode.

Mr
Smith described how he heard shouting and went outside to see a
landslide had occurred onto the line. Knowing that a train to
Bacup was due in five minutes he lost no time. Scaling a wall at
the rear of his home he dashed up the line towards
Britannia. Fighting his way through mud and water he
managed to accomplish his object waving his cap to get he
attention of the engine driver who managed to stop the train
about 100 yards away from the landslide. Just before the
train reached the spot there was a blind bind of which the
driver would not have been able to see any obstruction. Had the
train hit the obstruction it would have no doubt been hurled
20ft down the embankment into the main road. A gang of
about 30 platelayers shown in the pictures were soon on the job clearing the debris
and after two hours a single line was cleared.
Meanwhile in the town
cellars of shops in St James Street were quickly inundated in
one instance to a depth of three feet. Householders in Queen
Street of Market Street were among the worst sufferers the
cellar of every house in this street being under water. At the
house of number 18 a basement dwelling occupied by Mr and Mrs W
Marshall, the bedroom, living room, and kitchen were flooded to
a depth of 4 feet, and furniture and carpets were floating
about. Prior to the arrival of the services Mr Marshalls
brother Miles had been bailing out the house with buckets.
An alarming experience
befell Mr George Lord, herbalist and confectioner of 183 Market
Street and his wife. Mrs Lord stated that she hand her husband
were woken with the sounds of what sounded like a flood on Sunay
morning. When she arose she found that water from Plantation
Street at the rear of the house was pouring through the ceiling
into the bedroom, part of the bedclothes were soaked though.
The position at
Stacksteads was even worse than at Bacup, at Shade End in the
vicinity of the Stacksteads recreation ground a small stream
which flows through a tunnel under the railway became so swollen
that the tunnel was unable to take the whole of the water, which
in consequence poured out onto the recreation ground. The River
Irwell also overflowed its banks near to the Acre woollen mill,
water from this source joining the other so that the recreation
ground was soon covered.