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Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 322, 1 December 1855, Page 8

There have been some storms in various parts of the {country during the last week. Iv the metropolis, on Saturday, hail and rain, accompanied by intensely vivid lightning, and heavy rolling thunder, descended in sheets, and in the vicinities of Holloway, Islington, and Hoinsey, considerable damage has been sustained by nurserymen and market gardeners, by ihe breakage of glass. At the church of Holy Trinity, Biompton, the tower was struck, and one of the pinnacles driven with a great crash to the ground. The same day there was a storm at Oxford, where the parish church at St Ebbe'B was somewhat injured ; the lightning struck the weathercock, knocked a small portion of the top of the lower off, passed through the roof of the church, completely melting part of tbe spouting and took tbe door of tl c pulpit off its hinges. At Cowley, the lightning struck a farmhouse, injuring the chimnies, and knocked the hat off a laborer. At Hannay, a miller, who was on the bank of a pond, catching a dish of fish to send to Oxford, was stuuncd, and on recovering his self possession found a bird close to him, with its head severed from the body, and its wings singed, and in the pond he look up eight good sized perch, that had been killed by the lightning. The crops of corn also suffered considerably ; whole fields have been knocked down. At Bristol the slorra took place an hour or two previously, and the thunder was so violent, and the lightning so vivid, that the captains of African and Indian ships in the port describe it as being the nearest approach to a tropical tornado that they have ever witnessed in this country. The hail beat the wheat down in all the surrounding country, and broke thousands of panes of glass: and at St. George's, Gloucestershire, the electric fluid struck a house near the Don John's cross, destroyed tbe chimnies, and struck the house from the roof to the basement story. On Tuesday afternoon, Nottingham and its neighbourhood were visited by a thunder-storm. The rain fell in torrents, accompanied by hailstones of a very large size, till the lower parts of the town were flooded. In parts of the town walls were washed down. At Carlton, a village near Nottingham, a man was engaged making a channel for the water'lo pass off, when the flood washed a wall down near where he was standing, and it falling upon him, he was severely injured. The floods reached the tops of the hedges of the fields near this village. A great amount of damage has been sustained in the fields contiguous to the river Trent, by the loss of stock.— Guardian, July 11.