The Balloon Stone, Standon Green End, Standon, Hertfordshire
This stone monument was built in c1784. It was put up for William Baker of Bayfordbury to commemorate the hot-air balloon flight by Vincent Lunardi in 1784. The inscribed plate on it was renewed in 1875 for Mr Giles Puller of Youngsbury. It has the inscription 'Let posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on the 15th day of September 1784 Vincent Lunardi of Lucca in Tuscany, the first aerial traveller in Britain, mounting from the artillery ground in London and traversing the regions of the air for two hours and fifteen minutes, in this spot revisited the earth.'
