BELSIZE COMMUNITY LIBRARY AND BELSIZE SOCIETY: JOINT EVENT
Organised by the Friends of the Belsize Community Library with BelSoc support, Lester Hillman’s talk “… A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” described weather events over the last centuries. His presentation opened with the 1975 evening in Belsize/Hampstead when up to 200 millimetres of rain fell in an hour representing one third of a whole year’s rainfall. Memories of that evening were shared, with both the presenter and audience members remembering the 14 August evening.
Rain was combined with hailstones, immense in size. Lester told us about the Wyldes Farm – the grade II* farmhouse still a feature of North End – that became inundated as run-off flowed through the house down to Golders Green. Its power crushed parked cars. There were numerous flooded areas in and around Belsize Park.
The talk also highlighted that rainfall was localised other parts of London did not have unusual rainfall. In fact, almost all the rainfall was in a very small area centred on Whitestone Pond. Distant from the formal measurement stations, it was only because the Hampstead Scientific Society had placed a weather station and observatory near the pond, operating since 1905, that data would be collected about this event.
How freakish was this? The rest of the talk then did contextualise the event. We were introduced to the 1091 tornado that flatted 600 houses on St Mary Le Bow mentioned in the Chronicles; and to more recent storms including one that flattened a tree in 2011 in Aspen Grove. Rarity confirmed, the talk concluded, we left the library into a calm evening.
Upcoming Belsize Library Talks
The Friends of the Belsize Library have organised an exciting set of speakers over the winter. Talks will be at Belsize Community Library, Antrim Road, NW3 4XN, starting at 7.30pm. Suggested donation £5
Thursday 21st November, 7.30pm: The Extraordinary Life of Elizabeth Blackwell. An illustrated talk by Pamela Holmes on the famous 18th century botanical illustrator who eloped from Scotland to London and later rescued her husband from the notorious Marshalsea debtors prison.
Thursday 12th December, 7.30pm: Working With Music and Paint. An illustrated talk with live piano music by musician and painter Ruth Waterman.
Thursday 16th January, 7.30pm: Survivors of the Holocaust. A talk by Dr Bea Lewkowicz. As we approach the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. Dr Bea Lewkowicz chairs a discussion with survivors about their experiences during and after the war.
Thursday 20th February, 7.30pm: Belsize House and other Local Country Estates. An illustrated talk by local historian Averil Nottage.