LYNTON & LYNMOUTH.

Last week we had a ride out to Lynton/Lynmouth for the day, then on to the valley of rocks. While there we took a few more photo's once again.For the moment here are a few of just Lynmouth.This village was completely devastated by a major flood in 1952 which I believe took about 30 lives and rendered about 100 homeless. The cause was that two streams which converge in the village swole to unbelievable proportions then came together to form a huge wall of water that swept through the village in the early hours of the morning while the inhabitants were asleep. There is a small Museum housed on the sea front documenting with photo's, newspaper cuttings and a scale model all about this disaster and is well worth a visit. The village is also famous for its cliff railway which runs up the very steep incline( under 1 in 3) between the village and Lynton(900 ft up) above. This narrow gauge railway is powered by river water and works on the principal of two cars (one up one down) with tanks of water full on one and empty on the other,The weight of the full tank hauls up the car and its inhabitants in the other, slowly releasing its water on the journey to compensate. This was built at least a century a ago, I believe it was started in 1889 and completed and opened on Easter monday 1990.(The history of this is available on the history of Lynton cliff railway).