Now is the season that the final leaves are blown from the trees, ready for winter and the new growth.

Sometimes, however, the high winds do more than blow off the leaves, and the latest one was a good example when damage was caused and people were killed.

But today, we will go back a year or two, to Friday, October 14, 1881 and what was called ‘The Great Storm.’ This caused problems across the county; Middlewich did not suffer too badly, although slates and chimney pots flew in all directions.

In Newton Heath, the Excise officer Mr Carter’s house was damaged when the chimney pot fell into the house. This stopped the smoke from escaping, and the house had to be quickly evacuated due to the smoke. At least 36 trees were scattered on the town’s road.

In Knutsford, Mr Waddle of Toft near Knutsford had a lucky escape when he stepped down from his wagon in King Street just before a chimney pot crashed down onto it. Trees in Tatton Park and the other Knutsford parks were destroyed, and the circus that had arrived that morning could not erect the tent, so the show was called off.

Winsford did not escape, and it had what was described as the worst gale in living memory. The same damage was caused in Northwich with the shed on Heskeths Bone Works in Lostock Gralam having its roof blown into an adjoining field, but there was a sad loss of life. A young girl called Annie, aged three years, the only child of Mr William Brocklehurst of Hulme Hall, Allostock, was blown into the moat next to the hall and drowned.

At Weston Point, much damage was caused to the salt flat boats that were sunk. Including two large barges belonging to Joseph Verdin and Sons. They were named Australia and Siberia.

The same year saw a blizzard when even the older generation could not remember one so strong. For the first time since the railways began, the trains were held up across the country through heavy snow, in many places up to 15 ft deep.

So, this year’s storm Arwen that was powerful with damage, deaths and injuries, was not the first and had been occurring through the years, in this case, back to 1881.