Today is Wold Newton Meteorite Day!

Around 3pm on Sunday 13th, 1795, a meteorite landed in a field near the village of Wold Newton in what was then a relatively remote part of England called the Yorkshire Wolds. 

At the time – 220 years ago – this 56 pound lump of nickel and iron was the largest meteorite to be observed falling on the UK. (A ploughman named John Shipley was so close that he was hit by mud and soil thrown up by the impact.) The owner the field – Captain Edward Topham (an eccentric character even by the standards of the Georgian era) – subsequently put the meteorite on public display in a hall on London’s Piccadilly and it can still be seen today in the Natural History Museum. (The illustration shows the 25 foot high brick memorial Captain Topham had erected to commemorate the event. The monument is also still in existence today.)

This incident also inspired the late science fiction author Philip José Farmer to develop what he christened the Wold Newton Family – a group of fictional heroes and villains whose super-powers were genetic mutations derived from the fact their ancestors were exposed to radiation when the meteorite crashed close to where their coaches were passing on that Sunday afternoon in 1795. The occupants of the coaches included Jane Austen’s dashing hero Mr Darcy and Sir Percy Blakeney, (better known as The Scarlett Pimpernel) while their descendants would include Allan Quartermain, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarty, Tarzan, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, James Bond, and even Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Just science fiction? Perhaps but at the time, Captain Topham’s daughters – Juliet, Harriet and Maria Cowslip – were known as “the best horsewomen in Yorkshire” and his kennels subsequently bred “one of the best and fleetest greyhounds that ever ran” !

For more details on not just the Wold Newton Meteorite but also the folklore and history of the surrounding area, check out my ebook A Travel Guide to Yorkshire’s Weird Wolds