Brr …. cold weather

70 Years Ago
Sussex Agricultural Express
5 February 1954

COLD WEATHER

While East Sussex shivered in the coldest spell that has struck the county for many years, a handful of regular sea-swimmers had their customary dip at Newhaven on Sunday morning. Among them was disabled man, 30-year-old Mr. Vincent Finn, of 1, Saxon Road, Newhaven, who has had a more or less regular swim ever since he lost a leg In 1950.

He works in Lewes, and every Sunday at 11 a.m. goes down to the sea with his dog which guards his clothes.

For the first time in the memory of the verger. Mr. T. F. Ovenden. there was no congregation for Evensong at East Hoathly Parish Church on Sunday. The Rector, the Rev. C. Ridley Richardson. and Mr. Ovenden waited until 7 o’clock and then locked the doors and went home.

An indication of the intense cold were temperature readings by
Mr. L. Protheroe Smith, of Green Bank, Rotten-row. Lewes. Early on Monday morning the ground thermometer sank to three degrees F., representing 29 degrees of frost. This exceptional reading was due to a combination of still air. clear sky and snow cover. The minimum in the screen was 14 degrees. Temperature was below freezing point day and night on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week, and again on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week.

The temperature recorded at Battle Waterworks dropped to 12 degrees, giving 20 degrees of frost, on Wednesday last week.

Piltdown Pond and Hailsham Common Pond were among other pieces of frozen water, and because of the drowning fatalities in Lancashire when ice broke.

Hailsham police warned children not to venture on the Common Pond. The upper reaches of the Rother, Tlllingham and Brede, and parts of the Uck at Uckfield, were frozen. There was only trickle of water at Uckfield Mill.