Barwell

On Christmas Eve 1965 a shower of stones fell on a Leicestershire village, the largest meteorite fall recorded in Britain.

Key facts

Type

Ordinary chondrite (L5)

Fell or found

Fell (witnessed)

Year

1965 (24 December)

Country

United Kingdom (England)

Mass

more than 40 kg in total

Official name

Barwell

On the late afternoon of Christmas Eve 1965, people in the Midlands of England saw a brilliant fireball streak across the darkening sky. Moments later, residents of the village of Barwell, in Leicestershire, heard explosions overhead. The fall came just after sunset, so the fireball stood out vividly against the twilight. Stones rained down on streets, gardens and fields. One family found pieces in their garden; others discovered fragments on roads and pavements. A strange Christmas present had arrived from space.

Collecting the stones

Scientists from museums, including the Natural History Museum in London, then known as the British Museum (Natural History), came to investigate. Local people searched for fragments, and over the following weeks many pieces were recovered and handed in or purchased. The total mass recovered was more than 40 kilograms, making Barwell the largest meteorite fall by total weight recorded in Great Britain. The largest individual piece weighed several kilograms.

Barwell is also a reminder that meteorites can land in busy places. Some fragments reportedly caused minor damage to property, but nobody was hurt.

What it is

Barwell is an L5 ordinary chondrite. Ordinary chondrites are by far the most common meteorites seen to fall on Earth. They are stony meteorites made largely of the minerals olivine and pyroxene, with small grains of iron-nickel metal and iron sulphide. 'L' stands for low iron: L chondrites contain less metal than the H, or high-iron, group, but more than the LL group. The number 5 tells us that the rock was heated quite strongly inside its parent asteroid, enough to blur the edges of its chondrules, the tiny rounded grains typical of chondrites, without melting it.

Many L chondrites show signs of a major collision in the asteroid belt about 470 million years ago, which shattered their parent body and sent a shower of fragments towards Earth. Fossil meteorites from that time have been found in limestone in Sweden. Not every L chondrite was affected in the same way, but the event shows how collisions in space shape the meteorites that reach us. Ordinary chondrites are thought to come from stony S-type asteroids, common in the inner asteroid belt. That link was strengthened in 2010, when Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft returned dust from the asteroid Itokawa that proved to match LL chondrites, close cousins of the L group.

Fresh stones with fusion crust

Freshly fallen Barwell stones had a thin, black fusion crust, the glassy coating that forms when a meteorite's surface melts in the atmosphere. Inside, they were pale grey with tiny shiny flecks of metal. Like all ordinary chondrites containing metal, they attract a magnet, a property that helps meteorite hunters tell them apart from ordinary rocks, although it is not enough by itself to prove that a stone is a meteorite.

Barwell today

Specimens of Barwell are held by museums including the Natural History Museum in London and Leicester Museum and Art Gallery. Many pieces were also distributed to other museums and collectors over the years. In Barwell itself, the event is still remembered with pride.

Why it matters

Britain has had relatively few witnessed meteorite falls, so each one is precious. Barwell gave scientists a large amount of fresh material from a common but important meteorite type, and its story inspired generations of British meteorite enthusiasts. It also illustrates a key point for anyone thinking about meteorites in the UK: a meteorite generally belongs to the owner of the land on which it falls. If you ever find a suspected meteorite, record exactly where it was found, ask permission before searching on any land, and contact a museum so that experts can examine it.

Did you know?

See more

Barwell in the catalogue