Rebecca Clay
Project Officer The Bolsover Dragonfly
Creswell Heritage Trust
Creswell Crags Museum
Crags Road, Welbeck,
Worksop, Notts. S80 3LH
e: rebecca.clay@creswell-crags.org.uk
t: 01909 720378
Creswell
crags
inspiring
visitors for 50,000 years
Spring 2012 Creswell Crags unearths the real beast of Bolsover
This week Creswell Crags announces plans for its groundbreaking new temporary exhibition to launch in Spring.
The exhibition will focus on the giant prehistoric dragonfly found in the coal measures in Bolsover Colliery.
This geological specimen is on loan by kind permission of the Natural History Museum in London.
Known locally as ‘The Beast Bolsover’ the dragonfly had a wingspan of over 20cm and belongs to the now-extinct variety of dragonflies known as ‘Protodonata.’ The fossil dates back to the Carboniferous Period and would have been flying around 300 million years ago.
For the first time in over 20 years, this nationally important geological specimen returns to the region and is being celebrated in a series of events and exhibitions at Creswell Crags.
In 1978, two miners working in Bolsover’s Colliery discovered a fossil of the oldest dragonfly known in the United Kingdom.
Creswell Crags are now looking for people to come forward with any information to help tell the story of its discovery in an exhibition that will launch in April.
Project Officer, Rebecca Clay, says ‘It is very exciting to have such an important part of the area’s natural history on display near to where it was discovered. It also gives us the opportunity to present the fossil in new way by telling the story of its discovery from the people that were there at the time. We really want the local community to have a say in how the exhibition looks and feels. As part of the development of the exhibition Creswell Crags is offering different bitesize courses in exhibition planning.
RETURN TO NEILS LOCAL HISTORY SITE