Wold Cottage monument

A brick obelisk of 1799 marking where Britain's largest witnessed meteorite landed.

Key facts

Where

near Wold Newton, East Riding of Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Kind

Visitor site

Visiting

Open-air site or visitor centre

Four years after the Wold Cottage stone crashed into his field on 13 December 1795, the landowner Edward Topham put up a brick obelisk on the exact spot. Its inscription records that a stone fell there from the air, at a time when most scientists still refused to believe such a thing was possible.

The monument still stands in farmland near the village of Wold Newton. It is one of the oldest memorials to a meteorite fall anywhere. It is on private land, but it can be seen from a public footpath nearby. The stone itself, about 25 kilograms, is in the Natural History Museum in London.

Highlights

• Wold Cottage the stone that fell here L6

Related pages

Opening times, what is on display and access to research collections change over time, so check with the institution before you visit.