Howardites
Meteorites of Britain and Ireland · England

The Appley Bridge meteorite

A 15-kilogram stone that fell after a fireball over Lancashire in the first autumn of the First World War.

Key facts

Fell
13 October 1914
Where
Halliwell Farm, Appley Bridge, near Wigan, Lancashire
Type
LL6 ordinary chondrite
Mass
about 15 kg
Where it is kept
Pieces in several museum and private collections
Nation today
England

At about a quarter to nine on the evening of 13 October 1914, a fireball and detonations were seen and heard across Lancashire and Cheshire. The next day a stone was found in a hole about 45 centimetres deep at Halliwell Farm, near the village of Appley Bridge. It weighed almost 15 kilograms, one of the largest single stones ever to fall in Britain.

Appley Bridge is an LL6 ordinary chondrite: low in metal, and strongly heated within its parent asteroid. It is crumbly, and a small piece that broke off was shown in a shop window in the village soon after the fall. Fragments have since passed into many collections.

The fall attracted attention despite the war news of that month, and letters and newspaper cuttings about it are still kept in the archives of the Natural History Museum.

Did you know?

Did you know?

Appley Bridge, at almost 15 kilograms, is the second heaviest single stone from any English fall, after Wold Cottage.

Did you know?

A fragment was displayed in a village shop window within weeks of the fall.

Find out more

Nearest other British and Irish meteorites