Has your school been learning about the history, geology or art of the Peak District?
Use this challenge to upload and share your work; from stories and articles to photography and artwork.
For more information, or inspiration, e-mail buxton.museum@derbyshire.gov.uk.
If you’ve managed to scramble up the steep sides of Parkhouse Hill, congratulations! You are standing on the remains of a reef attol, formed around 350 million years ago in the Lower Carboniferous. The hill still reflects the shape of the reef that formed it. If you look closely at the rocky outcrops you may find fossils of various sea creatures.
This site is now a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) so removing fossil material is forbidden. However, the collection of JW Jackson at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery contains many specimens from this site – and the collections helps us to understand what this reef would have been like when it sat in a warm, tropical sea.
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.
Among the many animal bones discovered at Hoe Grange were these strange objects.
They are pieces of fossilised poo (known as coprolites), left behind by hyaenas around 120,000 years ago. Hyaena dropping are high in calcium and phosphate which increase the chance of becoming preserved. The presence of hyaenas at this site may have helped to build up the archaeological record. The pack may have been using local caves as dens, bringing back and dropping the remains of other animals for us to discover many years later.
‘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.
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.
From 1880 until 1944, the lime kilns in the structure in front of you produced over 50 tonnes of quicklime a day. During the 1800s, the demand for quicklime increased for the growing steel and chemical industries as well as agriculture. To meet this demand, limestone quarries and kilns opened next to railways like this Midland line, now the Monsal Trail. Trucks used to bring in coal to burn in the kilns and take the quicklime away.
Limestone turns to quicklime when it is heated in a kiln (calcined). During the process the stone turns pale and cracks. The end result is quicklime, which is used in cement and mortar, and also by farmers to improve soils. The remains of lime kilns can be seen in many places in the Peak District, such as here on the Monsal Trail
