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Ruston and Hornsby Beevor Street Floods 1947

A post-war spring thaw brings flood chaos to Lincoln's industrial heartland.

Amateur film 1947 8 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for Media Archive for Central England

Overview

The winter of 1946/47 had been particularly bad. Large quantities of snow had built up causing chaos across Britain. The thaw struck in March and this amateur film shows its imapct on parts of Lincoln. The Beevor Street works of Ruston and Hornsby were flooded when Fossdyke and Brayford Pool overtopped their banks. There was no work in the foundry for a while, although the film shows office staff, presumably working above ground level, carrying on regardless.

Ruston and Hornsby Ltd was known in 1947 as makers of industrial diesel engines. In 1950 a huge new foundry was opened on the Beevor Street site, which was claimed at the time to be the largest in Europe. The company diversified into gas turbine production in the 1950s.

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