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Document number: 00983
Date: 19 Jun 1822
Recipient: FEILDING Elisabeth Theresa, née Fox Strangways
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA22-27
Last updated: 20th February 2012

Normanton <1>
June 19. 1822

I spent Sunday at Cambridge, and mean to pass through it again on my return - I think I shall be in town about Tuesday - Mr Bonney <2> received me very kindly & invited one of my Cambridge friends to meet me. We mean tomorrow to go to Cliffe in Northamptonshire to see his mother, who lives there. It is very near Fotheringhay. You can't imagine how verdant the country is - On Monday the 10th they had here the most violent thunderstorm ever known in the neighbourhood <3>- the lightning knocked off the top of North Luffenham spire with the weathercock which it threw 170 yards into a meadow - I have been to see the church which presents an awful spectacle of ruin - At Edith Weston there is a large new house, which was struck about 10 o'clock at night - The lightning has shattered the roof, [illegible] all the walls, & burst into the cellar - Nothing happened here, tho' they were all very much frightened -

Your affectionate son,
W.H.F. Talbot

Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville Street
London

Notes:

1. Normanton, Rutlandshire.

2. Thomas Kaye Bonney (1782-1863), Archdeacon of Leicester.

3. The Stamford Mercury reported on 'The Tempest of Monday night' on 14 June. There was lightning damage at North Luffenham and several other Rutland villages.