THE River Weaver may have brought prosperity to Winsford through the salt industry but it also brought disasters through subsidence and floods.

The flood of 1946 is well remembered by Winsfordians; Jimmy Tomkinsons' coal lorry ferrying townsfolk across town is a well-documented story.

The town's photographers photographed at least four floods in the town over the years, the floods of 1880 and 1881 were well covered by the Guardian and the photograph below shows Richard Cross in the tall hat. Richard was a boat builder on the dockyard, which is now the Marina.

In a series of postcards taken by Tommy Dutton, the local photographer, I believe that he took snaps at the time of the 1886 flood but because of the occasion published them later in his series of postcards of the town, as one of the postmarks is from 1912.

This is because one of the shops in the view is of Robert Slee's greengrocers, fishmongers and game dealer premises. He was there in 1874 but by 1892 he was gone from the marketplace.

High Street in the 1886 flood was flooded three feet deep with lower Weaver Street six feet deep - shops and premises were flooded out with damage to stock and furniture.

The rain at the time of May 7 to May 14, 1886, was incessant, with one day registering one-and-three-quarter inches, sluice gates and weirs were raised and men were sent to Northwich and Winsford to warn of the overflow.

People came from miles away to view the swollen waters and one man bought a flat-bottomed boat to ferry the 'passengers' from one side of the road to the other, while a local board supervisor constructed a plank footpath which was crossed by hundreds to see the flood.

A wall collapsed in Weaver Street, some 15 yards long, injuring a child, while out came the carts and traps with Winsfordians being charged 1d to carry women and children across the waters.

Even though the Weaver Navigation had the facilities to run the water off nobody envisaged the amount of water that had fallen.

The photo above shows the bottom of Winsford with crowds of townsfolk viewing the devastation by New Road. The group can be seen close to where Woolworth's was in later years.

Victims of the flood met in the Cocoa Rooms later to seek compensation from the Weaver Trust, later floods will be covered in further articles.