A few days of sunshine with a sprinkling of spring daffodils and there can be a false sense of security that the bad weather is over for another year. This year marks the 130th anniversary of the greatest blizzard to hit Cornwall in March 1891 when the county was paralysed and cut off from the outside world.

The railway system, telegraph service and shipping was severely hit due to the blizzard conditions with schools and local shops closed for many days, telegraph wires being down and roads and railway lines blocked.

On Monday March 7, 1891 for 72 hours severe gale force winds with blinding snow swept across Cornwall and Devon leaving towns and villages under a blanket of heavy snow with drifts up to 20 feet high.

Not since 1853 had similar conditions been experienced in the far South West. Lake’s Falmouth Packet reported: “The last train into Falmouth was on the night of Monday 7th and on Tuesday 8th March there was not a single arrival. There was no business, no newspapers, no letters, no telegrams, nothing but anxiety, bad weather, and vague reports of almost innumerable shipwrecks.”

Near Porthoustock the sloop Dove laden with manure for Gweek, was lost and the crew saved. Close to the Manacles Rocks the ketch Edwin laden with manure and the Aquila carrying maize were both wrecked near the cove. Despite valiant efforts by local fishermen from Porthoustock to save the men both crews were lost such was the ferocity of the easterly winds whipping big seas.

Along the coast at Porthscatho and Portloe two shipwrecks occurred. The German steamer Carl Hirschberg, from Hamburg to Cardiff grounded close to Porthscatho after dragging her anchor.

The Falmouth lifeboat Jane Whittingham was launched on service to go to her aid. A large crowd had gathered at the docks to witness the launch after hearing the gun summoning the crew. The boat was quickly manned and launched The whole of the harbour tugs had, however, gone to her assistance, and finding it impossible to pull against the sea in the bay the lifeboat returned the docks.

Off Portloe the British steamer Dundela succumbed to the weather, grounding close to the village where she eventually became a total loss.

Homeward bound from Calcutta fully laden with 17,000 bales of jute destined for the mills in Dundee the four-masted barque Bay of Panama made landfall at the Scillies but then encountered the full force of the weather off the Lizard. A day later on March 10th the Bay of Panama

found herself on a lee shore. The 2,200-ton sailing ship eventually grounded on Nare Point, south of the Helford River. Coastguards rescued 19 seamen but another eight froze in the rigging.

The Packet reported: “The full force of the terrible hurricane was felt at Falmouth, where considerable damage was done to property ashore and afloat and scarcely a house exposed to the gale escaped injury.

Instances of roofs being almost entirely blown away were numerous. The most serious damage was caused to property immediately overlooking the harbour.

“The back premises of Mr Webber, jeweller, opposite the Royal Hotel, which adjoins the Fish Strand, were completely washed away, including a fowl house, all the fowls being drowned.

“In the Rope Walk several fine Cornish elm trees were uprooted, one of them cutting clean through the roof of Messrs’ Game’s rope shed. Huge limbs of trees were blown down outside Grove Hill.

At Market Strand there was much damage at the back of the King’s Arms Hotel and other premises. “Nearly 100 feet of the sea wall in front of the Falmouth Hotel was washed away. Had the Earl

Kimberley not formed an embankment on Swanpool Beach, and built a retaining wall against the same, there is little doubt that the roadway between Falmouth and Budock would have been entirely washed away.

“Never in the history of Falmouth were so many boats wrecked in the vicinity of Market Strand and Greenbank. “The steam tug Carbon, belonging to the Falmouth Coaling Company, sunk at her moorings in the harbour, as did Messrs’ Broad and Sons’ and GC Fox and Company’s sampling gigs (craft that took samples of grain from the sailing ships).

The Falmouth Harbour Board’s steamer Arwenack was nearly wrecked but for the valiant efforts of Messrs Hingston and Jose who along with the vessel’s engineer Mr Maunder went afloat to save the Arwenack.

The cutter, Norman, also broke away and went ashore at Green Bank, damaging her bows, losing her bowsprit and sustaining other damage.

“The new steam tug Hercules, built by Messrs’ Cox and Sons, went up the Penryn River to shelter. The tug Victor had her bows smashed, and Mr Lean’s tug Pendennis sustained damage to her bow.

The Annie, of Padstow, from Restronguet for Swansea, loaded with arsenic, anchored in the inner harbour, and during the gale became entangled on the bows of a three-mast schooner, knocking in her bulwarks, losing her main mast, and slipping her anchors.

The brig Blanche, from Yarmouth to Cardiff, with a cargo of flour, went ashore on the Eastern Breakwater and was towed off by the tug Briton, which observed her signals of distress.

At St Mawes the steamer Helen, belonging to the Coverack Stone Company, broke adrift going ashore near the Castle Point. All six craft belonging to the Stone Company broke away from their moorings, one of them colliding with the pilot boat Vincent.