Mystery
Drake's Cannonball
She was promised to a sailor. The sky remembered.
Private, don't visit
- What's there
- Manor house with a rounded stone
- Legend from
- Local tradition, 1580s
- Tone
- Curious
A wedding at the church door, and a stone ball falling out of a clear sky.
Elizabeth Sydenham of Combe Sydenham was betrothed to Francis Drake, who then sailed away round the world. Her father, tired of waiting, arranged for her to marry a Wyndham heir. On the wedding day, as the couple approached St Mary's church at Stogumber, a ball of stone fell from the sky and crashed through the church roof. They took it as a sign and called the wedding off. Drake, the story says, landed in Plymouth that same day. A rounded stone about fourteen inches across, called Drake's Cannonball, is still kept at the hall.