Wonders of the Peak

Buxton Museum & Art Gallery

Geology

Peak Discoveries

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In honour of our upcoming Finds Day on 10 March 2018, we’ve relaunched our Peak Discoveries challenge!

Have you ever found something amazing or mysterious while exploring the Peak District? Maybe you turned over a stone to find a fossil, or found some strange shaped flint in a mole hill? Maybe you were taking part in an archaeological dig, or maybe it was a chance find while walking? We want to hear your stories.

What did you find?

Where did you find it?

What happened to it?

Do you know what it is?

We’ll be sharing the most memorable discoveries through this website and the Pocket Wonders app. So keep your eyes peeled to see if yours is picked.

The collections at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery are full of artefacts discovered by local people. This tradition goes all the way back to foundation of the museum in the late 1800s. The advert above, from the early 1900s, encouraged local farmers to report their archaeological finds to the museum.

Click below to respond to the challenge and tell us what you found.

Why not come along to our Finds Day on 10 March 2018 to get your object identified and recorded?

If you want to find out more, need some advice, or are thinking about donating an object to the museum, please e-mail buxton.museum@derbyshire.gov.uk or call 01629 533540.

 

Evidence of an ancient forest

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You should be following the route of the road with trees either side of you. If you were here around 310 million years ago you’d be in a very different type of forest – one that was warm, swampy and home to creatures such as giant dragonfly. These forests formed the coal measures that were mined here in the Goyt Valley, and elsewhere.

There’s evidence of coal mining in the Goyt Valley from the 1600s. Much of the coal was used in local lime kilns. Fossils are also found within the coal measures, such as the fossil below, it’s from a Lepidodendron, an extinct species of tree-like plants.

Lepidodendron fossil (DERSB : 2017.55) from coal measures in the Goyt Valley

Many plants and animals are found fossilised in the muddy beds and coal seams laid down 312–305 million years ago. You can see some of these seams in exposed banks at the southern end of the Goyt Valley.

[Read more…] about Evidence of an ancient forest

Fishy business

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Gazing out over Fernilee Reservoir today, you might wonder what fish swim below its surface. There were also fish here around 320 million years ago – and their fossilised remains have been found in the local rocks.

Fossilised fish scales, discovered in the Goyt Valley (DERSB : 9015) on display at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

The Goyt Valley lies in the Dark Peak, characterised by the presence of the ‘Millstone Grit’, a series of shales, siltstones and sandstones that were laid down by river deltas which were occasionally swallowed as sea levels rose and fell.

[Read more…] about Fishy business

The Wonders of the Peak: Poole’s Cavern

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‘Of the High Peak are seven wonders writ.
Two fonts, two caves.One pallace, mount and pit.’

‘Pool’s Hole’ was named as one of the ‘seven wonders of Derbyshire’ in Thomas Hobbes’ Latin poem De Mirabilibus Pecci (Wonders of the Peak), published in 1636.

This was followed in 1681 by The Wonders of the Peake, a satirical poem by Charles Cotton – who named Poole’s as the ‘first wonder of Derbyshire’.

Both poets were impressed by the natural wonder of Poole’s Cavern and it’s cave formations. Hobbes certainly felt the visit was worth his time.

One thing remain’d, but highly worth our view,
Pool’s hole, a cave so call’d and near us too.

Entrance to Poole’s Cavern, Buxton, mid-1800s. Engraved by Newman & Co. Published by JC Bates.

[Read more…] about The Wonders of the Peak: Poole’s Cavern

Peak Cavern

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 ‘Of the High Peak are seven wonders writ.                                                                                                                     Two fonts, two caves.                                                                                                                                              One pallace, mount and pit.’ 

Peak Cavern, also known as, “the devil’s arse” is considered a ‘wonder’ by Thomas Hobbes and Charles Cotton in their poems, De mirabilibus pecci and the Wonders of the Peak, which focus on the different attractions Derbyshire has to offer.

Castleton and the Peak Cavern, painted by John Webber in 1789

Charles Cotton states in his poem that Peak Cavern is a ‘village underground’ – referring to the fact rope-makers lived in the cave and often were the guides showing well-to-do tourist around the caves by candle light. As a result, guided tours around the cavern today include demonstrations of traditional rope making.

Despite, the poets’ amazement at the cave’s natural attributes, both Hobbes and Cotton engage with the folklore surrounding the cave, Hobbes associating it with ‘hell’ and Cotton with ‘Satan’.  This language exaggerates what was really like to visit these caves and had a lot more to do with dramatising the experience of travelling to Derbyshire.

[Read more…] about Peak Cavern

Headstone

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The creation of the tunnel in front of you exposed rocks formed 326 million years ago –  a time when this part of the world was a reef in a warm tropical sea, close to the Equator. The Peak District climate and environment was similar to the Great Bahama Bank of today.

Engraving of a train passing over the Headstone Viaduct, having just passed through the Headstone Tunnel (out of view to the left of the image), published 1863.

The layers of rock in Headstone Cutting are limestone and Longstone Mudstones, a type of shale. They show that this area was once a tropical lagoon with corals, plants and sea creatures. Like the Mississippi River at the Gulf coast today, the Peak District lay in the way of a large river delta that deposited sand, silt and mud into the basin. Gradual deepening of the seawater, either by a sinking sea floor or rising sea level, or both, allowed early inputs of mud into the marine basin, this forms the shales. [Read more…] about Headstone