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| An ichthyosaur skull at the Yorkshire Natural History Museum |
My exploration of the geology and architecture around Moorgate and Whiston, in Rotherham, turned into a good 8 km walk, but my next day out the following Saturday - which ended up having a palaeontological theme – was much more leisurely, starting with a trip to Malin Bridge in Sheffield on the Supertram.
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| A sign at the Yorkshire Natural History Museum |
Sometime during the summer, I had read something about a new museum opening in Sheffield, without thinking too much about it; however, on Friday 12th August, I woke up to an interview on BBC Radio 4 when James Hogg – founder of the Yorkshire Natural History Museum - was discussing its grand opening the next day.
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| The Yorkshire Natural History Museum |
Alighting from the tram at Hillsborough, I walked up Holme Lane to discover that a reasonable queue of adults and children had formed in anticipation of the doors being opened to the public at 11:00 am. Finally entering and paying my fee, I immediately took a liking to the dinosaur wallpaper used for the decoration.
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As a child, I had a fascination for dinosaurs and was a frequent visitor to the Natural History Museum but, when studying geology at Nottingham University, I wasn’t particularly inspired by the palaeontology lecturers; however, being once deeply involved in geological conservation in South Yorkshire and having worked with Sheffield and Rotherham Museums, where I had seen the decline of their geological displays, I was keen to give my support.
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| The main gallery |
Entering the gallery on the first floor, one wall comprises a showcase that is crammed full of fossils of all types and sizes that James has mainly collected himself over the years, along with a variety of decent sized mineral specimens.
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| Various specimens in the wall display |
The gallery also includes a handful of freestanding display cases that contain large fossils of ichthyosaurs, a plesiosaur and ammonites on loan, which are very impressive and as good as those that I have seen in many regional museums.
In very many respects this ambitious project is work in progress, with lessons in labelling and classification still to be learned from museums that have long established palaeontological displays; however, given that James’ background as a recent student in Economics and Economic History at The London School of Economics, without any background in the Earth Sciences, the subsequent progress made by him and his colleagues – with great plans for expansion in the future - has been quite remarkable.
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| Various specimens on display |
With visitors on the day far exceeding expectations, I just took a few quick photos and returned on the tram to Sheffield city centre, where I was surprised to see several sizeable model dinosaurs made out of LEGO in the Millennium Gallery.
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| A pteranodon |
As part of the Sheffield Bricktropolis, a trail of 15 brickosaurs had been laid out in various shops and public venues throughout the city centre. The previous year, I had taken the train to Leeds especially to see the full sized animatronic dinosaurs, but I had not seen any publicity of any kind for this trail in Sheffield.
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| A velociraptor |
Having loaded up with shopping before returning to Sheffield from Malin Bridge, I was not in a position to go searching for the brickosaurs and had to be content with just seeing the pteranodon, two velociraptors and a parasaurolophus.
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| A parasaurolophus |
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