Only when you read old newspapers do you realise what a rich tapestry of life runs through our area.

A little snippet appeared in the June of 1837’s newspapers.

Over on Portland Mr Richard Lane owned and ran a quarry there.

 One day, while quarrymen were hard at work, a large block of stone was removed from its bed some 40 odd foot below the surface. To everyones amazement it’s removal revealed a hidden and secret world, for beneath was the opening to a huge cavern.

Even more impressive, was what gems were found inside that cavern. Not jewels of the diamond variety, but bones, hundreds of bones. Not only the normal sheep, bunnies,( see…didn’t say the r….t word), deer and bullock bones, but more exotic animals such as tigers and hyenas. 

These were apparently in an excellent state of preservation. Some  completely embedded in the stalagmites that dotted the floor of the cavern.

 

 

It was decided they were “of great antiquity,” many experts of the day believing them to be from the Antediluvian period (the period before the Great Biblical Flood) 

A few were gathered up and handed over to the Museum of the Weymouth Institution, for surely no town of such royal connections should be without a museum.

 

 

No mention of what happened to all the remaining ones, presumably they made great little ‘holiday’ souvenirs for the wealthy visitors to the area, and a nice little earner for the quarrymen.

A further report later in the year states that great interest was taken in these remains by the general scientific community.  

Large fossilised trees had been uncovered before on Portland, but these were the first such animal remains ever found on the Isle.

 

 

The museum itself in Weymouth was growing in fame and popularity due to its expanding collection of natural history and exhibits of local geology and minerals in amongst other strange objects.

In the October of that year, the Museum was visited by no less a celebrity than the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, such was the interest in these fossilised bones of ancient times. 

You can still see some of these remains at the brilliant Portland museum, which is a Tardis if ever I saw one, compact and bijou but full of fascinating items.

https://portlandmuseum.co.uk/jurassic-fossils/

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If you enjoy my tales from WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND, why not buy a copy of

 NOTHE FORT & BEYOND?

In it you’ll find stories of love and hate, murder, mayhem and mysteries.

Read what life was really like those who occupied the Nothe fort and Red Barracks, and of the locals who had to learn to live life alongside them in a military town.

You never know, you might even find your own family within its pages.

Available from Nothe Fort bookshops, Weymouth Museum and Weymouth Post Office bookshop, St Thomas street.

 Or on Amazon.

But please try to buy local if you can to support local businesses.