The 1908 Spring Snowstorm

April can have all the seasons of the year rolled into one month and is often the most fickle. Shakespeare wrote of "the uncertain glory of an April day" and these words rang true in the latter half of April 1908 when a snowstorm buried the county in such a deep icy blanket as had seldom been experienced even in the strongest grip of the most severe winter.

It began at around 5am on Saturday 25th and continued unabated at a prodigious rate until half past seven at night. Not since the Great Blizzard of January 1881 had such snow been seen. Newbury in Berkshire all but came to standstill, the streets deserted and shops closed.

At Kingsclere just over the border in Hampshire a gentleman called Dr Maples took a yard measure and went, with difficulty, into the middle of his meadow to ascertain the depth of this truly remarkable downfall of snow. Having inserted it perpendicularly into the lying snow, it still did not touch the ground.

At Hampstead Norreys, Berkshire not even the oldest residents could remember such a fall so late in the year. With two feet of snow on the ground it was useless to hold a service in the parish church. The snow fell with such thickness it brought virtually 'white out' conditions.

At Abingdon, Oxfordshire, business was at a standstill with snow on some of the streets reaching three feet in depth. Near Lambourn the railway cutting at Eastbury was blocked and passengers had to wait forlornly in the snowbound train as gangs of workmen cleared the line.

The sheer weight of snow brought down various glass roofs and was so deep in Newbury that one lady recalled that when she returned home to Howard Road from work that day she was unable to find her garden gate. At the height of the storm a bemused swallow was seen flying around Newbury Bridge.

Snow was not confined to inland locations for it brought chaos to Southampton and Portsmouth where vehicles were abandoned and Bournemouth's Pleasure Gardens were strewn with branches and twigs broken by the sheer weight of snow.

But such is the capricious side to April's weather that the sun shone the following day and a rapid thaw set in turning the snow laden streets into water courses. By the 29th the mercury reached as high as 17°C with virtually all traces of snow having disappeared and a new hazard occurred - flooding. Some 6,310 million gallons of water flowed over Teddington Weir on the 2nd May, upstream many houses were inundated at Maidenhead and a person drowned at Oxford.