VII. An account of a storm of thunder and lightning at Norwich, on the 13th of July 1758
About four o’clock on Thursday afternoon, July 13th 1758. a short but severe thunder-storm, with lightning, fell upon the top of an house standing alone, and belonging to a common garden, on the causeway near Sandling's ferry, in the city of Norwich; struck off the tiles of the roof at the east end, to the space of a yard or two 5 burnt a very small hole in the middle of a lath, in piercing into the chamber, and then darted to the north-east; ript off the top of an old chair, without throwing it down; snapt the two heads of the bed-posts, rent the curtains, drove against the wall (the front of the house stands due north-east), forced out an upright of a window frame a yard long, three inches broad, and two thick; smote it in a right line into an opposite ditch, ten or twelve yards distant; then struck down on the wall of the chamber, paring off half a foot s breadth of its plaistered covering quite down to the floor, listed up a board of the floor, and leaving an hole of half an inch diameter, pierced thro’ by the side of the main beam into the kitchen, towards the west end of a pewter- shelf; traversed the whole shelf to the east, and melted superficially to the breadth of a shilling six pewter dishes, two plates, and a pewter bason, all standing touching one another: two of the dishes were thrown down, the rest not displaced.