A chunk of ice the size of a melon fell from the sky and smashed through the roof of a couple's summerhouse on April 30.

Doreen House with the block of ice that fell from the sky, crashing into her summerhouse

Arthur House, 80, of Watlington, was astonished to discover the ice, believed to have fallen from an aircraft, had plunged through the felt roof, leaving a six-inch hole.

He spotted the damage while glancing out of the window of his bungalow in Watcombe Road at about 9am.

On going out to investigate, Mr House and his wife Doreen, 74, discovered the missile melting on an inflatable mattress.

The couple brought the ice into the house and put it on the scales. It weighed almost 2lbs.

Mr House, who runs a property business, said: "I looked across to my summerhouse and I could see a hole in the roof. I went out and found this lump of ice. It had obviously come off an aircraft and had punched straight through the roof.

"If anybody had been lying on that lilo they would have been killed.

"We use the summerhouse regularly and have been out there a lot during the nice spell of weather recently.

Icefall from aircraft is usually caused by a leak in the onboard water system.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority which is responsible for the safety regulation of UK aircraft, stressed that incidents of ice falling from aircraft were extremely rare.

She said: "We receive about 30 reports a year of falling ice which, in the context of 1.9m flights over UK airspace each year, is a very small number.

"There is no record of anyone being seriously injured in the UK.

"A small leak at high altitude will form ice because of the low outside temperature. As the aircraft descends, the temperature rises and the ice falls to the ground.

"We will probably not be investigating this particular incident. There is a high concentration of aircraft in the South East and it would be difficult to pinpoint the source without knowing exactly what time it happened."