You could pick up thunderbolts in the Warren at Folkestone. This is an area of landslips from the chalk cliffs over clay.

I understood that thunderbolts were meteorites, and I assumed that if they were that common there, I should be able to see them landing, so I spent one evening looking out of my window towards the area in the hopes of spotting them.

Not having seen any, I decided that there was no reason why they should be attracted to the place.

What the things were, I was eventually told, were pyrites nodules from the Chalk. Later I was told they were marcasite. Anyway, they are hand sized balls of iron sulphide with radial gold coloured crystals inside a rusty exterior, some smooth, some lumpy.

They can also be found in the quarries east of Lewes.