Country diary: The magic of knowing a meteorite fell here, of all places | Meteors
OhIn a low-rise building, beyond a screen of trees, behind a small holiday park in the Yorkshire Wolds, a brick obelisk stands incongruously at the edge of an otherwise nondescript field. It bears a plaque bearing the following inscription: “Here, in this place, on December 13, 1795 / an EXTRAORDINARY STONE fell from the Atmosphere / 28 inches wide / 36 inches long…”
The words are engraved in a variety of enthusiastic fonts, with the opening “Here” particularly serious. The extraordinary alien stone in question is the Wold Cottage meteorite, the first in the world to be widely recognized as a rock from outer space. After a journey of 4.56 billion years, it now rests in the Treasures Gallery of the Natural History Museum.
I love everything about this: that it happened in this relative backwater, but that several people witnessed it (including a plowman close enough to be sprayed with impact debris); that the landowner, playwright and journalist, commissioned local craftsmen to erect this eccentric monument; that the location is still marked on an Ordnance Survey map, but obscurely, so you have to know what to look for; and that the current landowner is happy for people to visit him.
Most of all, I love the fact that on a dreary day in the dreariest months, I can pick my way through the mud, stand and squint in a freezing drizzle and remember that sometimes, in addition to rain, sleet and hail, the sky can offer something truly additional.
That same evening we are showing a new series on BBC iPlayer and boom… a meteorite crashes into a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of Manchester. Small Prophets is an anthem of infinite and special possibilities. Its creator, Mackenzie Crook, understands that nowhere is free from the potential for pure and unusual magic. I devoured the entire series and (despite the childhood trauma flashback from Watership Down) loved every minute of it.
I add this pleasant coincidence of two space rocks in a single day to the personal cache of affirmative experiences that give me something like hope. A belief that if you continue to travel the country – any country – with your mind and senses open, then small, slim chances accumulate and coalesce until, sooner or later, extraordinary things become almost certain to happen.
