Haslemere Educational Museum

Size: 15,300 Specimens (8190 fossils, 4203 minerals, 2907 rocks)

Content:
Includes a comprehensive stratigraphically arranged collection of British fossils, with strengths in Mesozoic (molluscs, brachiopods, and echinoderms) and Cenozoic (molluscs) invertebrates, as well as Lower Palaeozoic fossils (in particular Cambrian and Ordovician graptolites and trilobites etc.).

Amongst this there is also a good collection of vertebrate fossils including complete mounted icthyosaur specimens, reptilian (Permo-Trias) footprints, dinosaur fragments, a good variety of both primitive and more evolved fossil fish, and Pleistocene mammals (mastodon, wooly mammoth, rhino. etc), and an example of the extinct flightless bird (a skeleton and an egg) the moa.

Fossil 'insects' include, amongst other things, a perfectly preserved example of a spider embedded in amber. There is a selection of fossil ants and woods. The mineral collection is of worldwide origin, and is of good quality with many rare examples.

The collection(s) of local rocks, fossils, and minerals is small by comparison [367 specimens]. Many of these however are from the Hindhead-Haslemere area. Local (Surrey) fossils include Wealden fish, dinosaur, molluscs, and fruits; Lower Greensand [Atherfield Clay,Bargate Beds,Hythe Beds] ammonites, nautiloids, oysters, echinoderms, wood, and trace fossils, many of these local to the Haslemere district. Chalk fossils are from Betchworth and Guildford, and similarly a number of the Pleistocene mammal fossils (woolly mammoth teeth in particular).

There are a large number of locally collected rocks, in particular those from the Wealden and Lower and Upper Greensand outcrops. There are also some examples of older buried rocks from local (Surrey/Hants. border) boreholes and a few local minerals.

Collectors:
Many important 19th.century collectors and collections incl. Sir Archibald Geikie (geological specimens, collecting equipment, and important archives including field notebooks and watercolour sketches of geological localities etc.in both America and Britain); other important collectors include Col.J.C.Hawkshire; J.E.Lee; Major G.F.Walton; and Arthur Richards amongst others.

 

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