click to return to 
Parish of Padiham<!-- 1 Insert ParishName here -->
 Home & Contents

The Church of St Leonard, Padiham
in the County of
-- Lancashire --

click to return to Lancashire Home

Weather Reports

Found at the end of Burials for 1799

The whole of this year has been the most excessively wet ever known in the memory of man. The corn in this neighbourhood was a genuine Bad Crop, and for the most part, spoiled in housing. This being the case nearly throughout the whole kingdom. Corn rose to such an enormous price as had never before been known. Flour sold here in the course of the ____ing sprang so high as 5 pounds 5 shillings a pack of 240 pounds weight, and was retailed at six pence a pound. Oatmeal sold at five pounds – a load of 240 pounds weight, and was retailed at 5 ½ pence a pound. Malt at 80 shillings a pack. Potatoes at 24/- a load or 3 ? ?. The highest price before being not more than 1/-. Butcher’s meat about the usual prices from 5d to 7d a ?. The years however proved ? ? ?. Potatoes were retailed 1 ½d a pound.

Found at the end of Baptisms for 1806

1806 The winter of this year and all the ensuing Spring were so mild and open as never remembered in any other: a circumstance most providential as the preceding Summer was extremely droughty, that Hay was a missing crop throughout the whole country. In some places not a third of the actual quantity was produced. Corn however was a good crop and well housed. As the winter was the most open, so the summer was the fairest the writer of this ever remembers. And, through a merciful and gracious providence, the adage of a Green Winter making a fat church yard was rendered, even to the middle of the next April. The above remarks were written on the 16th April 1807 and in that very night a snow altogether unsuspected fell, which measured without drifting six inches deep.

Found at the end of Baptisms for 1807

1807. Memorandum. The Winter of this year was most remarkably severe. Early in November the cold was so severe and the ground so covered with snow that several horses were found dead in the Pastures. The evening of the 19th was most violent and tempestuous, the ground covered above a foot deep with snow. The cold was so ? that in my study, a small warm room, the thermometer was at 40 and a round faced barometer there fell in such a violent and sudden manner as I never before observed. It had got below all the graduated parts at Stormy 28: and was within two of a tenth part of a degree of coming round again to Very Dry 31. The fruit of the Hawthorn had been agreeably to the vulgar observation most abundant indeed. The Winter however which was most long and most severe throughout till the month of March, was upon the whole very healthy and attended with no uncommon mortality. The constant changes nevertheless from Frost to Thaw and from Rain to Freezing, made it peculiarly pernicious to patients? suffering from Gouty and Rheumatic complaints. The fear of death occasioned great economy in the cowhouse and stable; which produced a good effect and parsimony supplemented scarcity.

Padiham Home & Contents ©Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerks

Lancashire Home