ARCHIVISTS at East Riding Council are appealing to people to check their attics and cupboard for historic documents that could shed light on a major event on the area's history.

The council's archives hold copies of newspaper reports about the Wold Cottage Meteorite, which fell to Earth just outside Driffield in December 1795.

A sensation at the time, the event attracted nationwide attention and it is known that landowner Major Edward Topham wrote numerous first hand accounts of the 51lb meteorite's crash. It is those documents the archivists are hoping to uncover.

Collections officer Sam Bartle said: "It is a long shot, but it is surprising what people have stored in their attics, and you never know, there might still be one or two Edward Topham letters hanging around in the East Riding that we could preserve for posterity.

"We have an original report of the incident from a 1796 edition of the London Chronicle, and various publications in our local studies collections, but it’s a crying shame that we don’t have more contemporary evidence preserved in our region, of what was such a monumental event. It would be fantastic if someone in the East Riding was still sitting on original documents that could be given to us for permanent preservation."