The Balloon Stone (Lunardi Monument)

This list entry has been subject to a Minor Amendment on 13/11/2018

TL 31 NE 4/6

STANDON STANDON GREEN END (south side) The Balloon Stone (Lunardi Monument)

(Formerly listed as Monument at Standon Green End)

24.1.67

II Monument. Circa 1784. Erected for Wm Baker of Bayfordbury to commemorate the hydrogen balloon flight by Vincent Lunardi on 15 September 1784. Inscribed plate renewed 1875 for Mr Giles Puller of Youngsbury. A large ice worn sandstone boulder worked to a vertical corner at south east, about 1.5m high and 1.5m maximum width at base, with a triangular engraved copper plate with a hinged copper cover-plate on the levelled apex of the stone. Small rectangular copper plate on sloping south west side recording renewal of top-plate. Protected by a penannular cast iron railing of moulded standards and two horizontal plain bars. Inscription: 'Let posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on the 15th day of September 1784 Vincent Lunardi of Lucca in Tuscany, the first aerial traveller in Britain, mounting from the artillery ground in London and traversing the regions of the air for two hours and fifteen minutes, in this spot revisited the earth.'

Listing NGR: TL3641919792