- About
- Visiting
- What’s On
- Venue hire
- Catalogues
- Collections
- 101 Treasures of Chetham’s
- Digital Resources
- The Flowers of Histories
- A Book of Hours from France
- The Manchester Scrapbook
- Thomas Barritt of Manchester
- Art Treasures Examiner of 1857
- Manchester Association for Constitutional Order
- The North Western Museum of Science and Industry: Some Reminiscences by Richard Hills
- Criminal Manchester
- The Cup of Destiny
- Athenaeum Souvenir
- Middle English Manuscripts
- Manchester and Liverpool of Today
- Hollingworth’s Mancuniensis
- Memoir of Cecil Wray
- William Seward’s Diary
- The Anti-Monopolist
- Fishwick’s History of Rochdale
- Knyvett’s Defence of this Realm
- Tractatus de Nigromantia
- Axon Ballads
- Printed Books & Ephemera
- Archives & Manuscripts
- Prints and Photographs
- Blog
- Support us
A sudden and terrible raine
The infamous Manchester weather has been a preoccupation for local residents for well over three hundred and fifty years, according to the earliest surviving history of the town.
Richard Hollingworth’s Mancuniensis, or an History of the Towne of Manchester, contains several references to the region’s tendency to rain heavily and repeatedly on both the just and the unjust. In July 1648, for example, ‘there was a sudden & terrible raine on the Lords day wch in twoo houres space filled the sellers in the market place hanging ditch & three channels ran downe the stretes like great rivers’. Perhaps next time an unexpected downpour catches us without an umbrella we should bite our tongues and be thankful for modern drainage.
The manuscript of Mancuniensis has recently been digitised in its entirety and is now available to view online as a pdf. Other manuscripts and printed works are due to follow, thanks to a generous grant from the Manchester Statistical Society.
This week’s 101 Treasures post takes a closer look at Hollingworth’s manuscript. Click here to find out more.
