High tide again!

High Tide again

From December 14th to February 22nd 2014, our Ancient Landscape will be adding its own distinctive wooly touch to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery’s “White Peak, Dark Peak” exhibition

Celebrating the inspiration that the gritty Dark Peak and softer landscapes of the limestone White Peak have offered  artists over the centuries, the exhibition features prints, paintings, finds and poems from the Museum collection. It includes several new pieces added to the collection during the Enlightenment! initiative.

Quietly loitering on one wall, is a poem by one of our own Ancient Landscape artists. Gordon MacLellan’s “The Hills are Waiting” is included as an invitation to visitors to step out and go exploring these dramatic landscapes for themselves.

Public events: we are planning a public event on Tuesday 18th February 2014 - more details to follow. There might be a weekend event as well...

Useful links:

Gordon’s blog

The Museum’s Collections in the Landscape programme

who could resist paddling in this ancient sea?

Apple Day, 13th October

Apple Day

Sunday 13th October 

11.30 - 3.30

Dove Valley Centre

No, we're not fossilising apples nor pretending they are the first of the Carboniferous fruits! But thsi Apple Day falls from its tree deep in our ancient limestone landscape, just where muddy water shales meet the limestone of the lagoon floor

Add caption

So, our Ancient Landscape will be rippling itself around on this Apple Day to remind everyone of the geology under their orchard feet!

So come along and play with a trilobite or two!





And try some of the Apple Days activities as well:
apple tasting and identification
apple recipes
apple juicing
orchard wildlife walks
techniques for pruning your own trees
storytelling
and other fruitful delights!

Where: Dove Valley Centre, Under Whitle, nr Longnor, SK17 0PR (on the road between Longnor and Sheen)
Cost: free!

Wandering through Winnat's!

Tuesday 6th August

Winnat's Pass Walk

A report on our adventurous adventurers!

Hunting for Fossils!

A small band of explorers set off from Castleton Visitor Centre on a mission to find fossils in our ancient landscape. 

Winnat's Pass is a spectacular limestone gorge, full of caves and scree, providing the ideal location for rock and fossil hunting. As we walked up to the Pass, Jenny Gerrans from the National Trust pointed out Mam Tor, the mother mountain with a face of shivering shale overlaying the limestone. The remains of a bronze and early iron age hill fort can be seen in the landscape around the Tor and we thought this would be a good place to see right across the valley.

We soon reached the first of many little caves in the Pass. Little but big enough for us to get inside and some of us could even stand up! Very exciting, although rather dark. We found pieces of fossil in the stones around the cave entrance, then started to investigate the scree. 

One of our party found an age worn pound coin, not quite old enough to be a real fossil. 

Report by Sarah Males, artist, cave grubber and appreciator of fossils

Summer events for families!

Ancient Underwater Adventures 

This Summer

We have some exciting activities coming up over the holiday period...summaries follow and then more detail further down the page. Have a read! Get excited! Come and join us in our investigation of the ancient landscapes of the Peaks!

Event summaries: details follow

All events are free (car parking charges may apply in some places). Family events suitable for children from 4 years and over

1. Tuesday 30th July: Life in ancient seas, at the Moorland Discovery centre, National Trust Longshaw nr Hathersage

- make your own prehistoric rockpool model! Sessions 11 - 1 and 2 - 4, no booking needed

2. Thursday 1st August: Monsters from the Limestone, Buxton Museum and Art Gallery: SK17 6DA, making large puppet fossil animals from the depths of the ancient Peak District seas!, 10-30 -12.30, 1.30 - 3.30

3. Tuesday 6th August: Winnat's Pass Walk: exploring the millstone grits of the Dark Peak. Meet: Castleton Visitor Centre Car Park, S33 8WP, at 2pm. Walk 2 - 4pm, some steep sl

we found this image on-line,
apologies to anyone
who feels robbed by that!

opes and off paved footpaths

4. Wednesday 7th August: Life in Ancient Seas at Leek PlayDay

Brough Park, Leek, 11 - 3: meet the Ancient Landscape team and make your own finger-puppet fossils or ancient seascape

Events in detail

1. Life in ancient seas

Date: Tuesday 30th July 2013

Venue: Moorland Discovery Centre, National Trust Longshaw, nr Hathersage

Times: 11 - 1 and 2 - 4

Booking: no booking needed just drop by and join in

Cost: free: materials provided (donations welcomed)- car parking charges may apply

Organisers and more information: this is part of the Ancient Landscapes project organised by Stone and Water (http://ancientlandscapes.blogspot.co.uk/).

What's happening?

Come and paddle in a prehistoric sea! Explore life in the Carboniferous Seas of 300 million years ago that eventually gave us the limestone, shale and gritstones of the Peak District. We'll look at fossils to understand the animals of the times, draw those animals and the corals and seaweeds they lived in. Then visitors can make their own model rockpool as a piece of ancient seaside to take home

2. Monsters from the Limestone

Date: Thursday 1st August 2013

Venue: Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, terrace Rd, Buxton SK17 6DA

Times: 10.30 - 12.30 and 1.30 - 3.30

Booking: no booking needed just drop by and join in

Cost: free: materials provided (donations welcomed) - car parking charges may apply

Organisers and more information: this is part of the Ancient Landscapes project organised by Stone and Water (http://ancientlandscapes.blogspot.co.uk/).

What's happening?

Exploring life in the Carboniferous Seas that eventually gave us the limestone, shale and gritstones of the Peak District. We'll look at fossils to understand the animals of those times, and build our own limestone creatures as puppets and masks - make a pet trilobite, wear a giant brachiopod, or have a tame crinoid or nautiloid to ripple home with you….

Basic activity is straightforward with lots of options for people to experiment with

3. Winnat's Pass Walk

Date: Tuesday 6th August 2013

Meeting point: Castleton Visitor Centre Car Park, Castleton, Hope Valley S33 8WP

Times: 2 - 4pm

Booking: no booking needed just drop by and join in

Cost: free: materials provided (donations welcomed) - car parking charges may apply

Organisers and more information: this is part of the Ancient Landscapes project organised by Stone and Water (http://ancientlandscapes.blogspot.co.uk/).

What's happening?

With National Trust Rangers, we will explore the geology of this dramatic gorge, meeting the millstone grit that eventually covered the limestone of the White Peak. A Stone and Water will help the group explore creatively: drawing rocks and shapes, composing instant poems, making up wild stories about the cliffs and caves of the Pass.

This walk will last 2 hours, has some steep slopes and will not remain on paved surfaces. Strong footwear essential and clothing to suit the weather

4. Life in Ancient Seas at Leek PlayDay

Date: Wednesday 7th  August 2013

Venue: Brough Park, Leek (beside the Leek Leisure Centre)

Times: 11 - 3

Booking: no booking needed just drop by and join in

Cost: free: materials provided (donations welcomed) - car parking charges may apply

Organisers and more information: this is part of the Ancient Landscapes project organised by Stone and Water (http://ancientlandscapes.blogspot.co.uk/).

What's happening?

Come and paddle in a prehistoric sea! Explore life in the Carboniferous Seas of 300 million years ago that eventually gave us the limestone, shale and gritstones of the Peak District. We'll be making personal finger-puppet trilobites and pet ammonites and models of ancient seasides…

The seas of June

Ancient Landscapes splashing about the summer!

nesting coral from Lady Manners

We've had workshops all over the place this month, so here is a quick collection of excitements...

We have visited

Lady Manners School - working with the Year 12 textile students

Lady Manners, large drawing

National Trust at Ilam Park for a Father's Day event

Buxton Soroptomists where we gave an after-dinner talk complete with fossils, model trilobites and horseshoe crabs, and crochet seaweeds creeping across the tabletops

Lady Manners Horseshoe Crab

kelp!

Peakabout Arts with High Peak Community Arts: with some beautifully deocrated felted kelps unfolding stickily across the workshop

Silverdale Knitting Group in action

Silverdale Knitting Group - with comment below from our artist, Sarah Males, who led the event and then a further message from the Silverdale library team who host the knitting group (hope they don't mind me quoting their lovely comments!) 

needle-felting ancient fish

"A lovely afternoon at Silverdale Library with the knitting group. We set off travelling back through time, as far back as 360m years ago, thinking about life in shallow seas. Images of corals, sea lilies and brachiopods living in our landscapes, long, long ago and far, far away. Today we have fossils, clear and tangible memories of life at that time. And our challenge? To help the reef grow, creating with crochet, fossilising with felt and knitting new creatures to populate this ancient landscape.

Hooks and needles, stitching and stabbing (needle felt!) and a busy room all combined to produce twisting coral shapes and felted fish, jellies and stars. Some Silverdale folks plan to visit Buxton" Sarah

"I just wanted to extend my thanks on behalf of the ladies who attended the session yesterday .We all had a brilliant time! Thank you again for arranging it for us. A couple of the ladies mentioned on the way out that they are going to drive up to Buxton for the open day! All in all I think it was very successful and I wish that Sarah could come to us every Friday!!" Silverdale

Visit the Silverdale group: www.pokerlibrarian.com

Pop-up Blossom Studio

This project is not part of Ancient Landscapes itself but is another environmental experience, organised this time by Victoria who painted the magnificent landscape we use in our publicity….

Blossom postcard by Victoria Brown

Have you ever felt disconnected from nature? Do you only capture its beauty fleetingly, rushing through your daily life?

I have a one-word suggestion for you...

BLOSSOM!

The wonder of the bud and the explosion of thousands of unfurling petals creating a cacophony and mass majesty of blooms. Nature trumpeting spring, life and infinite possibilities!

We lose so much connection of humanness when we forget the seasons apart from the disruptive side of its nature.

Sometimes we can feel like we’re grating against it rather than basking with it in harmony, sharing the seasons joy.

To me there are few greater weighted displays of nature’s celebration than the fresh fizz of 'Blossom' the subject and title of my new exciting project, kindly supported by the Arts Council England, The National Lottery and Arts Derbyshire.

The blossoms are transient, urgent for their life, then they’re gone.

Come with me in awe, see the blossoms and my work in progress or bring your brushes and enjoy, capture a place in time and reconnect- if only for that moment, maybe that moment yearly?

If they were not here on our planet, if they didn't bloom, what would we miss?

What if we were separated from nature and lived only remotely in an electrified wire filled world and lost connection to nature completely? What if we forgot we were any part of it?

For me my life would ache with the loss, nature is as grounding to me as it is uplifting!

Join me?

Fizz!

Visit www.victoriabrownart.com for information on Blossom events at Hardwick Hall, Chaddesden and Derby or follow Victoria on Twitter @victoriasart Facebook Page: www.facebook/VictoriaBrownartist and www.blossomblogger.wordpress.com

Telephone 07973162721 or email: victoria@victoriabrownart.com

 

Victoria's Ancient Landscape for our project

The tide comes in!

An ancient sea in Hartington!

 On Sunday 12th May from 1 - 5pm, the ancient landscapes of the Peak District will come to life again (albeit a bit woolly and fluffy) in Hartington

finger tip coral growing

As part of the events to launch the Village Trail, our Ancient Landscape will be on show. Visitors will be welcome to dip their fingers into the woolly tentacles of ancient sea anemones and risk a nibbling by trilobites

ancient rockpool

Visitors will also be able to add their own fingertip corals or other creatures to the growing reef and to make their own Prehistoric Rockpool or Personal Trilobite to take home

Event details

Date: Sunday 12th May 2013,

Time: 1pm - 5pm

Costs: our activities are free (not sure about others)

Venue: Village Hall, Hartington, Hide Lane, Buxton, SK17 0AW

Other activities include fossils to look at, the Village Trail to follow, activities with the Peak Park Rangers and the chance to enjoy one of the Peak District's lovely villages!

make your own rockpool to take home

fingers can be at risk in an Ancient Landscape!

Sunshine and trilobites

Miller's Dale, Saturday 6th April

all set up and ready for action

fossils and finger-corals

A sunny day in the Peak District! This felt like an exciting release after weeks of cold snow and slippery roads and visitors came rushing out to bask in the sunshine

And the stones were waiting! We had a lovely day working with visitors to this peaceful stopping point on the Monsall Trail

We rummaged in the fossil-pot (thanks to the National Park Rangers for the wonderful chunks of limestone!)

having a good rummage

fluorspar with galena? out of the fossil-pot

We made new fingertip corals and personal trilobites

40 people went off to look at fossils along the Trail (thanks again to the Rangers for leading these)

fossil-expedition setting off!

And the rest of us (another 60 during the day), looked at stones, handled fossils, made models and enjoyed the sunshine!

rockpool!

personal nautilus

Life in ancient rockpools

a finger-crinoid nestles in an Ancient Landscape

We've just had a lovely day at Castleton Visitor Centre in the Hope Valley in Derbyshire. After snow a couple of weeks ago closed the centre, and the roads, and dramatic Winnatt's Pass, and froze our first "ancient rockpools" day out, today really counted as the start of public workshops for this project

our practice pool to get people started

86 people joined us during the day to look at fossils and models of ancient animals, and to stroke, prod, squeeze and generally explore our Ancient Landscape. Then most people made for themselves either a fossil fingerpuppet or an ancient rockpool from these far-off Carboniferous days (or both). Given what we were finding in our imagined rockpools, it's probably just as well we humans weren't around then!

hand-jelly...

...and fingerfish

We did make some practical discoveries, however, including "the easy way to draw a trilobite" - details will follow in another blog. And we met Toby with his lovely fossil blog - why not take a look? Fossilfriends

But mostly, we made things....

so cold outside, it wasn't safe to take gloves off indoors!

Next event is Saturday 6th April - Miller's Dale