Lynmouth is a village in Devon, England, on the north edge of Exmoor.
The village straddles the confluence of the West Lyn and East Lyn rivers, in a gorge 700 feet (210 m) below Lynton, to which it is connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway.
The two villages are a civil parish governed by Lynton and Lynmouth Town Council. The parish boundaries extend southwards from the coast and includes hamlets such as Barbrook and small moorland settlements such as East Ilkerton, West Ilkerton and Shallowford.
Lynmouth was described by Thomas Gainsborough, who honeymooned there with his bride Margaret Burr, as "the most delightful place for a landscape painter this country can boast".
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A lifeboat station was established in Lynmouth on 20 January 1869, five months after the nearby wreck of the sailing vessel Home. The lifeboat was kept in a shed on the beach until a purpose-built boat house was built at the harbour. This was rebuilt in 1898 and enlarged in 1906-7. It was closed at the end of 1944 as other stations in the area could provide cover with their newer motor lifeboats. The boat house was then used as a club but was washed away in the flood of 15 August 1952. It has since been rebuilt and includes a public shelter.[1]
At 7:52pm on 12 January 1899, a 1,900 ton three-masted ship Forrest Hall, carrying thirteen crew and five apprentices, was in trouble off Porlock Weir on the North Somerset coast to a severe gale which had been blowing all day. She had been under tow, but the tow rope had broken. She was dragging her anchor and had lost her steering gear. The ship's destruction was probable. The alarm was raised for the Louisa, the Lynmouth lifeboat, to be launched to assist. However, due to the terrible weather, the launch was impossible. Jack Crocombe, the coxswain of Louisa proposed to take the boat by road to Porlock's sheltered harbour — 13 miles (21 km) around the coast — and launch it from there.
The boat plus its carriage weighed about 10 tons, and transporting it would not be easy. 20 horses and 100 men started by hauling the boat up the 1 in 4 Countisbury Hill out of Lynmouth. Six of the men were sent ahead with picks and shovels to widen the road. The highest point is 1,423 feet (434 m) above sea level. After crossing the 15 miles (24 km) of wild Exmoor paths, the dangerous Porlock Hill had to be descended with horses and men pulling ropes to stall the descent; during this they had to demolish part of a garden wall and fell a large tree to make a way. The lifeboat reached Porlock Weir at 6:30 A.M. and was launched. Although cold, wet, hungry and exhausted, the crew rowed for over an hour in heavy seas to reach the stricken Forest Hall and rescue the thirteen men and five apprentices with no casualties; but four of the horses used died of exhaustion. The Forrest Hall was towed into Barry, Wales.[1] [2]
The event was re-enacted 100 years later, in daylight, on today's much better roads.
On 15 and 16 August 1952, a storm of tropical intensity broke over south-west England, depositing 229 millimetres (9.0 in) of rain within 24 hours on an already waterlogged Exmoor. It is thought that a cold front scooped up a thunderstorm, and the orographic effect worsened the storm. Debris-laden floodwaters cascaded down the northern escarpment of the moor, converging upon the village of Lynmouth; in particular, in the upper West Lyn valley, a dam was formed by fallen trees, etc., which in due course gave way, sending a huge wave of water and debris down that river. The River Lyn through the town had been culverted to gain land for business premises; this culvert soon choked with flood debris, and the river flowed through the town. Much of the debris was boulders and trees.
Overnight, over 100 buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged along with 28 of the 31 bridges, and 38 cars were washed out to sea. In total, 34 people died, with a further 420 made homeless.
Similar events had been recorded at Lynmouth in 1607 and 1796. After the 1952 disaster, the village was rebuilt, including diverting the river around the village.
In 2001, a BBC Radio 4 documentary suggested that the events of 1952 were connected to government operation Project Cumulus involving cloud seeding experiments being conducted in southern England at the time. There does not presently seem to be any direct evidence to support such allegations, but conspiracy theories have been fuelled by rumours of missing or destroyed government documents relating to the experiments.[2][3]
The small group of houses on the bank of the East Lyn river called Middleham between Lynmouth and Watersmeet was destroyed and never rebuilt. Today, there stands a memorial garden.
The town of Lynton and Lynmouth is twinned with Bénouville in France.
The British technical modern rock band InMe make semi frequent lyrical references to the Lynton/Lynmouth area in their lyrical material. Lynton is name-checked in "In Loving Memory" on their third album Daydream Anonymous and Lynmouth is name checked in "Saccharine Arcadia" on Phoenix: The Very Best of InMe. Lead singer Dave McPherson also has a song entitled "Sunny Lynton" on his EP Crescent Summer Sessions and refers to Watersmeet on "Waltzing in a Supermarket" on "I Don't Do Requests".
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