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.