The Stretchleigh meteorite
The oldest recorded meteorite fall in Britain, a stone that dropped into a Devon orchard and was then lost.
Key facts
- Fell
- 10 January 1623
- Where
- near Ermington, Devon
- Type
- Stone, never classified
- Mass
- about 10 kg reported; nothing survives
- Where it is kept
- Lost. No specimen survives.
- Nation today
- England
On 10 January 1623 people planting trees in an orchard on the Stretchleigh estate in south Devon heard a loud noise in the sky that rolled away into the distance. A stone came down close to them and buried itself about a metre deep in the soil. Contemporary accounts give its weight as about 23 pounds, roughly 10 kilograms.
The description is clear enough for the fall to be accepted in the official catalogue of meteorites, and it is the oldest recorded fall in the British Isles. Nobody kept the stone, however. In 1623 educated people did not believe that rocks could fall from space, so there was no reason to treat it as precious, and it disappeared long before anyone could study it.
Because no piece survives, Stretchleigh can never be classified. It is listed simply as a stone, and its place in the record rests entirely on the written report. It is a reminder that the history of meteorites is partly a history of witnesses: until the early 1800s, careful accounts like this one were the only evidence anyone had.
Did you know?
Stretchleigh fell more than 170 years before scientists accepted that stones fall from the sky.
It is one of only two British meteorites known only from written accounts; the other is Hatford, five years later.
Find out more
- Stretchleigh in the catalogue: the official class and recorded mass
- All the meteorites of Britain and Ireland, with a map
- Found something in the UK or Ireland? What to do next