Saturday, February 10, 1940

BIRDS were frozen to death as they perched in trees and then encased in ice in the north Cotswolds 75 years ago.

Trees and telegraph poles were felled as if by the invisible hand of a giant and large birds were forced to the ground by the formation of ice on their wings and bodies while they were flying.

These were just some of the strange effects experiences in the north Cotswolds during the severe weather reported in the Journal in early 1940.

The ice coated bodies of frozen birds were found on tree branches in several parts of the district. Three small birds were found dead on one branch at Notgrove.

Their bodies and the branch on which they had perched were covered with a thick transparent coating of ice.

Crows and other birds experienced a common hazard of aviation and, because of the formation of ice on their wings, had to make forced landings.

Hundreds of miles of telephone wire was trailing on the ground when the grip of the frost relaxed.

The wires collapsed under the great strain of ice which clung to everything like blight, or were brought down by falling branches of over hanging trees.

Hundreds of telegraph poles collapsed under the strain.

In all wooded regions - particularly in the high lying parts of the district - the eerie sound of branches and limbs crashing to the ground and occasionally of trees themselves falling could be heard while the frost held.

The damage to growing timber amounted to many thousands of pounds.

Four photos were used in the Journal of Saturday, February 19, 1940, to convey some impression of the task with which the Post Office Engineering Department had to deal as a result if the snow and frost.

They featured a pole being stayed by two bracing wires, both of which gave way with the thaw. Others showed ice piled up on the side of the road after the thaw and some of the ice remained on twigs, even after they had been brought to Evesham from Broadway Hill.