Let us commemorate October 17, 1814: the London Beer Flood.
Close to where Centre Point now stands on Tottenham Court Road, was the Meux and Company Brewery (aka the Horseshoe Brewery).
On October 17, 1814, the hoops broke on one of their huge beer fermenting vats, sending about 82,400 gallons of beer gushing in all directions. The force caused other vats to break, creating a beery tsunami of some 323,000 gallons to cascade along the narrow streets.
Basements flooded, two houses were destroyed, and nine people died from drowning – or in the case of one opportunistic individual, alcohol poisoning.
A court later ruled the accident an “act of God.”
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