The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-14 00:00:00

TERRIBLE CALAMITY AT SHEFFIELD,

TWO HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

At a little before midnight on Friday last one of
these terrific disasters to which nearly all the great
towns in the north of England are now more or less
exposed happened at Sheffield. The great reser-
voir of the Sheffield Water Company—a reservoir
nearly 100 acres in extent, and which held more

than a million cubic feet of water, suddenly burst
its embankment and swept with the fury of another
deluge down the narrow gorge formed by the Lox-
ley and Stannington Hills into Sheffield itself.
Almost before warning could be given the volume
of waters began rushing headlong down thevalley,
sweeping farms and houses, forges and factories,
like chaff before it. Never, probably, before has
an accident of the same kind occurred so ruinous
in its wholesale destruction of property', so la-
mentably fatal in the loss of human life. What-
ever the sudden and tremendous flood could
reach it seems to have destroyed, and, calculating
only by the number of houses swept away and the
persons missing who were known to have been in
them on the fatal night, there is every reason to
fear that the lives sacrificed by this awful calamity
will not be less than 200, if they do not unfortu-
nately exceed even that number. Of the damage
done to property it is impossible at this early date
to form even a conjecture. The devastation in this
respect is unparalleled. A large, populous, and
thriving district has been almost obliterated from
the earth, scarce more than traces of the houses
and factories that once stood there now remaining.
Those who are acquainted with the neighbour-
hood of Sheffield know that at a considerable ele-
vation above the town, on the little Matlock side,
in the nook where the Losley and Stannington Hills
join, the great reservoirs of the Sheffield Water Com-
pany are placed. In this part of the country, between
five and six miles from Sheffield, the reservoirs form
such picturesque accessories to the surrounding hills
that no one who has seen them will easily forget
them, while, on the other hand, those who have
once seen them will understand at the very men-
tion of their name how destructive must have been
their bursting into the steep valley which they
overlooked, and which led direct into the lower
parts of Sheffield.

The Bradfield reservoir which gave way so fatally
was of immense length, though narrow
in width,
and would hold 114,000,000 cubic feet of water
when it was full ; but it is said it was not quite full
on Friday. Ominous reports had been current as to
the state of the embankment, which is of enormous
depth and thickness, and was thought to be of com-
mensurate strength. Its appearance of massive
solidity was, however, belied by the facts. About
9 on Friday night, after the engineers in charge had
left, a farm labourer, crossing the embankment as a
short noticed a crack in it.
He atonce across
gave
an the
alarm, valleys
a
and ran down the valley
to recall the engineers (Mi. Gunson and another
cut
gentleman), and he succeeded in overtaking them.
They returned, but thought the crack of little im-
portance; in a short time, however, other signs pre-
sented themselves, and they attempted to blow up a
weir that crossed the dam at one end, in order to
allow the water to escape. While the men were
engaged in laying the charge, Mr. Gunson and his
companion went to the fissure and crossed it. Mr.
Gunson had scarcely got clear, when the fissure
widened to a tremendous crevasse, and a portion of
the embankment, 110 yards long by 70 feet deep,
gave way at once, and the "world of water" rushed
with a prodigious roar, into the valley below. The
enormous mass burst down the hillsides with a din
like the heaviest thunder, and the unhappy cottiers
in the valley were drowned instantaneously in their
houses, from which they had not the slightest chance
of escape.

The full fury of the flood spent itself on the dis-
trict lying between the junction of the Loxley and
the Rivelin and the Neepsend bridge. The scene
of devastation there is awful. Solid and sub-
stantial buildings, workshops, rows of houses,
bridges, everything that opposed the course of
the flood, yielded before its overwhelming might.
All
property, mighty rush of
the
waters.were w h e 1
Butm e d
the
ne al tohs s thee f
incal-
culable as it is at present, sinks into insignifi-
cance when compared with the awful loss of human
life Persons who are familiar with the district
will know that between Hillsborough-bridge and
Malin-bridge there stood several long rows of cot-
tage houses, inhabited by the workmen of the mills
and forges on the adjacent streams with their fami-
lies. With a few exceptions the flood has wholly
demolished all these rows of dwellings. In many
instances even their foundations are obliterated.
Standing at the junction of the Loxley and the
Rivelin are only a few scattered houses, the walls
and windows burst in by the flood, standing to
mark the site of the once populous village. The
enormous volume of water debonching from the
gorge at the foot of Loxley valley seems to have
divided itself into two streams, which swept with
resistless force over the hamlets of Malin-bridge
and Hillsborough. The bridges that formerly
crossed the stream have been swept away to their
011124tion §tolloo, And the fliPtricto which the