A violent westerly gale, attended by considerable loss of life
and great destruction of shipping and damage to sea - defence works, raged throughout the whole of Friday week. The ' Primrose Hill,' a four-masted ship, was wrecked off the South Stack, near Holyhead, only one out of a crew of thirty-five surviving ; and twelve lives were lost by the wreck of an Austrian barque at Buds, From noon till 8 p.m. the velocity of the gale at Fleetwood reached eighty-one miles per hour ; serious breaches were made in the sea-defences at Dover and Folkestone, and Watchet Harbour has been practically devastated. Great damage has also been done at many inland towns by the force of the wind and by floods, Coventry, Tewkesbury, and Bath having been exceptionally unfortunate. The Avon on Mon- day night was 14 ft. above its normal level—or only 1 ft. below the " record " flood of 1894—whole streets were cut off by the inundation, and hundreds of people confined to the upper stories of their houses.
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