Things I Did Not Know Until Today

Bristol Channel Floods - 1607

On 30 January 1607 (New style) the Bristol Channel floods resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, with houses and villages swept away, farmland inundated and livestock destroyed, wrecking the local economy along the coasts of the Bristol Channel, England.

The devastation was particularly bad on the Welsh side from Laugharne in Carmarthenshire to above Chepstow on the English border. Cardiff was the most badly affected town. The coasts of Devon and the Somerset Levels as far inland as Glastonbury Tor, 14 miles from the coast, were also affected.

There remain plaques up to 8ft above sea level to show how high the waters rose on the sides of the surviving churches. It was commemorated in a contemporary pamphlet God's warning to the people of England by the great overflowing of the waters or floods.