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A storm of Periwinkles !

  • 17 Jan 2012
  • Weather
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A phenomenal storm took place at Henwick in 1881. Mrs Millward of Bromyard Road recalled the incident when she was a girl: 'I was  8 or 9 at the time. There was an awful storm. When we left school in the afternoon, as soon as we heard what had happened, we ran there and picked up shell fish, putting them in our pinafores. They were alive and sodden with water, making our clean pinafores wet and dirty. Mother said they were snails. There was much talk about it at the time. They were chiefly on the Oldbury road. They were all over the road, the banks were full of them, and they extended over the hedges into the gardens. They began about where Laugherne Road now is, continuing along Oldbury Road to Comer Gardens corner. It was a sight! There seemed to be tons of them'. It recalls a storm at Hanbury about 1860, when there was a storm of frogs which came down like hailstornes and covered the ground for 250 yards.