The Great Thunderstorm of Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Dartmoor,…
June 1638 CE
The Great Thunderstorm of Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Dartmoor, Kingdom of England, takes place on Sunday, October 21, 1638, when the church of St Pancras is apparently struck by ball lightning during a severe thunderstorm.
An afternoon service is taking place at the time, and the building is packed with approximately three hundred worshipers.
Four of them are killed, around sixty injured, and the building severely damaged.
Written accounts by eyewitnesses, apparently published within months of the catastrophe, tell of a strange darkness, powerful thunder, and “a great ball of fire” ripping through a window and tearing part of the roof open.
It is said to have rebounded through the church, killing some members of the congregation and burning many others.
This is considered by some to be one of the earliest recorded instances of ball lightning.
The priest, George Lyde, is unhurt, but his wife ”had her ruff and the linen next her body, and her body, burnt in a very pitiful manner”.
The head of local warrener Robert Mead struck a pillar so hard that it left an indentation; his skull was shattered, and his brain hurled to the ground.
A "one Master Hill a Gentleman of good account in the Parish" was thrown violently against a wall and died "that night".
His son, sitting next to him, was unhurt.
Some are said to have suffered burns to their bodies, but not their clothes.
A dog is reported to have run out of the door, been hurled around as if by a small tornado, and fallen dead to the ground.
The village schoolmaster of the time, a gentleman called Roger Hill, and brother of the deceased "Master Hill", records the incident in a rhyming testament which is still displayed on boards (originals replaced in 1786) in the church.
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