Dinosaurland Fossil Museum, Coombe Street, Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3PY

(01297)443541

steve@dinosaurland.co.uk

Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is owned and operated by Steve and Jenny Davies.

Steve is a Palaeontologist with degrees in Geology from Oxford and Palaeontology from London. He worked as a Palaeontologist in the oil industry with BP in areas as diverse as Alaska and China and eventually became Chief Palaeontologist for them. He left and bought the building that Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is housed in. He collects the fossils, makes the exhibits, writes the text..... And with Jenny’s help is a very personal museum. The collection continues to grow through new finds and purchases.

The museum is 100% self financing and receives no public funding or grants. The only source of income comes from admission fees which are used to maintain the building and develop the collection.

The Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is aimed at children from 5 to 85 with an interest in fossils and dinosaurs. It houses a spectacular collection of the local Jurassic marine fossils and explains what they are, why they are there and what they mean.

The Map room introduces you to why Lyme Regis is so good for fossils and shows you where to go to find your own fossils.

The Fossil Collection takes up most of the ground floor of the building. It is a spectacular collection of the local Jurassic marine fossils ranging from the largest Ichthyosaur through ammonites, belemnites, fish and starfish to the tiniest microfossil. You will see the full range of what lived in the Jurassic sea in a way that might surprise you (did you know that at least 21 different types of belemnite are found in Lyme Regis?). More exotic exhibits include real Chinese dinosaurs and a 73 kilo lump of dinosaur dung!

The Natural History Room has a collection of modern shells and skeletons to show you how present day life evolved and how it is related to the dinosaurs and fossils in the museum.

Upstairs, the Time Gallery introduces you to the vastness of geological time and takes you through a tour showing how the continents and life have changed with time culminating in the monsters of the Age of the Dinosaurs.

We have finally finished building a Jurassic garden in one half of the front courtyard. The tree ferns coped with the weather and the salty wind over the winter. The gravel is down, the security measures are complete to stop the person who attempted to steal plants and the final batch of tree ferns are in place and starting to throw out fronds. There are lots of ferns and non flowering trees like Ginkgo but of course no flowering plants. The contrast is made to the modern plants on the other side of the courtyard which features flowering and fruiting plants like the Olive tree and the grapevine.

We are constantly adding to the collection in many different ways. There are always new individual specimens being added. A major new exhibit is the Nick Samphier Collection from Ringstead. This was collected 20 years ago before municipal vandalism covered the site with coastal protection boulders and is irreplaceable. It comes from the 162 million year old Ringstead coral bed and consists of lobsters, corals, giant gastropods ammonites and reptile bone.

A curious new addition to the Natural History Room is a 6 foot Blue Shark which is more than 100 years old!