A Village Destroyed by a Big Storm

A village in Devon was destroyed in one night.

A big storm hit a fishing village in Devon in 1917. Only one house was left standing after the storm.

Hallsands is a village that has been around since the 1600s. In 1891, 159 people lived there.

In 1917, almost all of the houses in the village were destroyed by the sea.

Luckily, nobody was hurt, but the people lost their homes. They had to wait seven years to get money for what they lost.

The storm was very strong, but that was not the only reason the village was destroyed.

The people of Hallsands had to wait a long time to get money for their lost homes.

In the 1890s, the government needed to make a bigger dockyard. They took rocks from the sea near Hallsands to use for the dockyard.

The people of Hallsands said that taking the rocks would hurt their village, but the government did not listen. By 1900, the beach was getting smaller and a storm destroyed part of the wall that protected the village.

The people of Hallsands were very upset and the government started to listen to them.

In 1901, a government inspector said that the village was in danger from big storms and that they should stop taking rocks from the sea.

After they stopped taking rocks, the beach started to get a little bigger again, but storms still hurt the village.

In 1917, a big storm destroyed the village and only one house was left standing.

The house that was left standing belonged to a woman named Elizabeth Prettyjohn. She lived in the house with her chickens until she died in 1964. The house is still there today.

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