The Devonshire Excavation (also called the Devon Ditch and Devon Deeps) was a hole in the county of Devon in England created when a starship called the Golden Hind rammed the area.
The birthplace of Elliot Tindall, Berton, was annihilated in the collision and Tindall was killed, allowing a Klingon spy to assume Tindall's identity.
In 2275, the spy and his wife, Luisa Tindall, visited the excavation because Luisa wanted to understand "Elliot's" past. The spy was very short with his wife because he did not want her to discover that he was actually a spy. (TOS novel: Timetrap)