Rotational earthquake effects in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is an area of low to moderate seismicity, and damaging earthquakes are uncommon. However, even in the limited record of damage from historical British earthquakes, a number of instances can be found of rotational effects on parts of structures, primarily chimneys or the tops of spires. We have assembled all the instances we know of from the United Kingdom record and present them here with illustrations and extracts from the original reports. It is not possible to determine whether these are the effects of true rotational motion or the effects of translatory shaking. Interestingly, this problem was considered in some detail by field investigators as long ago as the 1880s.