The largest meteorite ever to have landed in the British Isles is now on display at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Weighing in at 92kg, the meteorite was unveiled by Colin Pillinger, professor of Planetary Sciences at the Open University, on Tuesday. Read more
UK's 'biggest' meteorite to go on display in Salisbury
A meteorite which was discovered in Wiltshire and is considered to be the biggest to have fallen in the UK, is to go on display in Salisbury. The 90kg meteorite is thought to have been found in the 19th Century by Edward Duke, a previous owner of Lake House in Wilsford-cum-Lake. Read more
A meteorite believed to be the largest ever to have fallen on the British Isles, will go on display at the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum next month. Weighing 90kg, the meteorite landed around 30,000 years ago during the last ice age. Read more
Meteorite was 'frozen during the Ice Age and found at a burial site near Stonehenge 200 years ago'
Experts believe they have discovered the origin of the 200lb meteorite, which is thought to be the largest ever to fall on British soil. Not only do researchers believe they know where the space rock came from, they think they know why it survived so long without disintegrating. It is likely the meteorite was frozen and preserved for 20,000 years during the Ice Age, it has been claimed. Professor Colin Pillinger believes the metallic iron rock could have landed on Salisbury Plain 30,000 years ago before being picked up by druids. They might have used it in the construction of a chalk mound - such as Silbury Hill near Avebury, Wiltshire, - which would have protected it from decay; the reducing environment of chalk - the anaerobic environment - would have prevented the iron from oxidising. Source
Wilsford-cum-Lake doorstep meteorite 'biggest to fall in UK'
Mystery had always surrounded the origins of a 200lb (90kg) meteorite that had been on the doorstep of a Wiltshire house for more than 80 years. Experts had wondered if the space rock had initially landed in another part of the world several thousand years ago and had been brought at some stage over to England Read more
The giant rock, spanning about 0.5 meters across and weighing 93 kilograms, was likely discovered by an archaeologist about 200 years ago at a burial site created by the Druids (an ancient Celtic priesthood) near Stonehenge, according to said Colin Pillinger, a professor of planetary sciences at the Open University. Read more
Title: The meteorite from Lake House Authors: C.T. Pillinger, J.M. Pillinger, R.C. Greenwood, D. Johnson, A.G. Tindle, A.J.T. Jull and M. Ashcroft.
In 1991 a very big meteorite (>60kg, dimensions: diameter 50cm x height 40cm) was brought to the Natural History Museum by the then occupier of Lake House, a country mansion in Wiltshire, UK, associated with a large estate of the same name. The circumstances concerning the likely origins of this 'find' are dealt with in a companion abstract. Our attention was attracted to it because of its proximity to Danebury Hill (20 km east), where the only British meteorite 'find', collected under controlled circumstances, was located in 1974. If the large meteorite from Lake House turned out to be paired with the much smaller Danebury find, then the mystery surrounding its origin would be instantly solved. The sample from Lake House was confirmed as a meteorite by Robert Hutchison and subsequently returned to its owners. Our electron microprobe data from a PTS made from a chip taken at the OU suggest it should be classified as type H5 similar to our assignment for Danebury.