Jon Trevelyan(UK)
Contained in what was as soon as the Radstock Market Corridor (Fig. 1), that is maybe certainly one of my favorite native museums. Perhaps it’s as a result of the museum is near fantastic relics of the Somerset coal industry and to the Upper Carboniferous plant fossils that were a waste product. (My maternal grandfather was a miner in one of the two collieries in Aberdare in South Wales, and my mother took me collecting on the tips when I was young.)
In fact, in the Radstock district, there are still some tips where you can find plant fossils. Nearby is also the impressive ‘volcano’ at Midsomer Norton, which will always be a monument to coal miners who laboured in the coalmines of this part of the world (Fig. 2). (It is a tip containing waste from the Old Mills and Springfield collieries.)
However, this museum is not really a geology museum. It has a lot of geological exhibits, but rather it is a museum of Somerset coalfield life, but no less fascinating for that. There are permanent displays covering two floors within the listed building. On the ground floor, there is the history of the 75 or so coalmines that once existed, and the mining communities of Radstock and the local trades and industries which supported the miners and the industry.
This includes, on entry, a gorgeous horse-drawn carriage from the Co-op (Fig. 3). All this, along with some great fossils from the Upper Carboniferous, upper Triassic and the lower Jurassic.
There is also a reconstructed coalmine/tunnel showing how dangerous and difficult it was for men and boys as young as five years old working in Somerset’s narrow coal seams, where were sometimes just two feet high. And to set this in context, there are displays covering the villages and towns that grew to accommodate the miners and their families plus all the people needed to support the collieries and the transportation of coal to places such as Bath and London.
For example, there is a miner’s cottage, with laundry room and outside privy, where a bucket under a wooden shelf with a hole in it provided the only toilet for several families to share.
There are also displays of the local trades and industry, including:
- the breweries at Oakhill, Holcombe and Radstock;
- the making and mending of boots and shoes;
- the Brass and Iron foundry at Paulton;
- the Blacksmith’s forge;
- a shop from the times (Fig. 4); and
- the Victorian Printing Office.
There is also a Victorian classroom to wander through.
However, as you know, it is always for the displays of local geology and fossils in the Geological Section that I visit such museums. In terms of Radstock Museum, I love Upper Carboniferous plant fossils, and it is no surprise that the museum contains some lovely examples of ferns and other fossils from the Coal Measures.
All these fossils have been found from the waste tips from the mines of the areas and which are the basis of the museum. The last mine closed in 1997 but many of the others closed much earlier. Therefore, the exhibits tend to represent the Victorian and Edwardian eras (Figs. 10, 11 and 12), and there is also the reconstructed mine tunnel from those times referred to above, indicating just how unpleasant and dangerous the work was (Fig. 13).
As for the danger in the mines, there is an example of the base of a Lepidodendron tree (Sigillaria; Fig. 14), which miners in the UK used to refer to as bell moulds (and as kettlebottoms to miners the USA) when they could be seen in the ceilings of the tunnels. One of these smashed my grandfather’s arm when he was crawling along a tunnel when it fell– a once frequent occupational hazard for miners and one that often proved fatal.
The Upper Carboniferous beds in area and, in particular, at Writhlington are from the Westphalian C Upper Coal Measures (Radstock Formation) – about 300 million years old. And it was from the waste-tip of Tyning Colliery, which is on the outskirts of Radstock, that Boltonites radstockensis (‘the Radstock dragonfly’) was found. This giant dragonfly fossil was found in 1912, in a piece of shale on that tip. Amazingly, this hugFig. 14. A ‘bell mould’ (aka a ‘kettlebottom’ in the USA, a term that I prefer). These are probably examples of Sigillaria.e dragonfly had a wingspan of 40cm and they probably lived on smaller insects, which they may have caught in glades in swampy forests that were widespread during carboniferous times. In fact, it may have been larger than the more famous Meganeura and may indeed have been the largest insect ever to fly.
Unfortunately, this unique fossil is not on display at the museum. Rather, it is now in the care of the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge. However, there is a display about it in the museum (Fig. 15). In addition, there are plenty of other excellent examples of fossils from this time, all found from tips in the area.
However, it is not just Carboniferous plant fossils on display. Near Radstock are quarries that once removed rock from the White Lias for building purposes. This rock is from the Late Triassic and yields some lovely marine fossils, many of which are on display at the museum (Figs. 16 and 17). There is also a model of one of those quarries (Fig. 18).
In the upstairs gallery, there is a wonderful slab of fossils that was found in a geology excavation at Welton Hill, Clandown, near Radstock, at Broadway Lane Clay Pit (Fig. 19). It is a block of Lower Jurassic Valdani limestone containing belemnites and ammonites.
There is also a fine example of Radstockiceras, which is an extinct genus of lower Jurassic ammonite (Fig. 20).
And it is not all geology and mining at the museum (Figs. 21 and 22), and there is also a pleasant café at the museum. So, I heartily recommend a visit to explore all aspects of former coal industry in Somerset and much else besides.
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