Hitchin has suffered at the hands of awful weather over the last 10 days, with heavy rain flooding homes, businesses and roads. But did you know the town was hit by the worst hailstorm in British history more than 325 years ago?

On May 15, 1697, Hitchin was bombarded by a hailstorm that sent large balls of ice - the size of a man's head according to local reports at the time - crashing to earth for five straight hours.

One report claimed to have seen hail measuring an astonishing 60cm in diameter, which if accurate, would be the largest hailstone ever documented anywhere in the world.

By the time it was all over, 5ft of murderous ice had piled up, buildings had been severely damaged, and one person was even left dead.

In nearby Offley, a young shepherd was caught outside when the storm began and was unable to escape. The hail left him with gruesome and fatal injuries, as described by Hitchin apothecary Robert Taylor in a letter to Sir Hans Sloane, the then-secretary of the Royal Society.

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"At Offley, a lad, keeping sheep, was killed by hailstones, one of which knocked out his eye, and his body was black all over," he wrote.

Another person was left severely bruised after being knocked unconscious, while birds was taken out of the sky and livestock killed.

Mr Taylor suffered himself, with the storm knocking him to the floor and damaging his home.

Further damage was caused, with the ice tearing up the ground, splitting oak trees and shattering house tiles and windows into pieces, including at a manor house in Ickleford.

According to the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, the storm swathe stretched for 25km, reaching as far as Potton, and was classed as H8 on the destructivity scale - which only goes up to H10.

No storm before or since in Britain has been recorded as a H8 with only a handful of storms in the last 350 years classed as H7.