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POGSON’S FOUNDRY, VICTORIA MILL, AND DYSON’S MILL

After leaving Bottoms Mill, the torrent assailed the machine shops and works of Messrs. Pogson & Co., at Round Bottom Mill, doing damage to the machinery.

Victoria Mill, occupied by Messrs. Harpin and Co., sustained considerable damage.  Machinery was broken and damaged, and several cottages and outhouses were swept away. 

Image produced from the www.old-maps.co.uk service with permission of Landmark Information Group Ltd. and Ordnance Survey

At the time of the calamity twenty persons were in cottages adjoining Victoria Mill, and these were only rescued by a communication being opened up through the walls with the end house, with was rather higher up away from the flood. 

Here in one chamber twenty poor creatures were huddled together, expecting momentary death, when at last the water abated sufficiently to allow of their being removed, which was scarcely effected ere the house fell. 

Joseph Pogson occupied the fist house, John Howard the middle one, and Eli Sanderson the one nearest to Holmfirth.

Here is the statement of a young man named Haywood, who had a narrow escape of his life:

“ I lived with my grandfather Howard, in the house nearest the river.  The next was occupied by Eli Sanderson and family; and the house furthest away from us Joseph Pogson.  Over our house was a warehouse, which was partitioned off from Pogson’s by a thin wall.  We heard no alarm, and found the water about us. 

Pogson, I believe, got his family up into the garret by a ladder, after which he pulled the ladder up after him, and broke into the warehouse through a door which had been closed up. 

He then broke a hole through the floor, and putting the ladder down, enabled Sanderson to get into the Warehouse also. 

Both families were then over our heads, but we could not get to them. 

When the water had subsided, I got a lad on my back and tried to escape to the road, but I could not, and I turned back and put the lad on the mill step; after which nine of us who were in the house escaped when we placed a ladder against the end of the wall, and enabled the other families to escape. 

Immediately after the roof fell in.  The greater part of the building came down.”

Another account says:

“At one end of the buildings at the side of Sanderson’s house, there used to be a flight of steps reaching to the upper storey or attic, which was used as a warehouse or warping room. 

When the flood came, Pogson, with some heavy instrument, made a way into Howards house by breaking through a kitchen wall. 

Immediately afterwards, Pogson’s house fell, and then a further way was made through into Sanderson’s house, but scarcely had this been accomplished when the second house gave way. 

The angry flood, as if longing for the life of these twenty persons, was gradually taking away the remaining cottage. 

In this imminent position the affrighted beings remembered the stairs at the end of the premises, and, with the object of reaching these, made another passage through the outer wall. 

To their horror, however, they found the steps had already been washed away. 

Returning to the house, the whole twenty huddled together in one corner, and watched the flood displace stone after stone, until there was just room for them to stand close together. 

Fortunately, this corner of the building withstood the force of the torrent, and thus the three families were saved from what seemed at one time certain destruction.”

At the mill last mentioned £1,500 damage was done.