LifeArtEarth

In 1828 near the village of Crondall in Hampshire ('Crondale" at the time), 18 year old Charles Lefroy while on a shooting trip, noticed a group of small gold coins exposed by turf cutters, initially mistaking them for buttons. The hoard contained 98 gold coins, of which 73 were early English 'thrymsas' and 24 of them 'tremisses' from Merovingian Frankia and Frisia. The coins were bought (from Lord Grantley via Baldwins) for Oxford's Ashmolean Museum in 1944, in memory of Sir Arthur Evans.  The hoard is thought to have been deposited 'perhaps a decade or two' after Sutton Hoo (Abramson 2022, p. 5), in the range of 635 to 650. While the Sutton Hoo purse consisted of Merovingian gold coins, Anglo-Saxon coins are predominant in the Crondall group. The Anglo-Saxon coins in the hoard were mainly struck in Kent and London and three of the coins were unofficial issues made to look like coins. The hoard also contained coin blanks and a contemporary forgery ...

The earliest account of Yorkshire geology was provided by George Young and John Bird (the illustrator) in a large format 1822 book titled ' A   Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast' . Their Plates II and III show images of fossil plants, with Plate II (see below) illustrating Middle Jurassic fern-like and cycad-like fossils, five of them from the 'Saltwick ironstone' near Whitby, and two from the 'coal shale' at Fryop (today Fryup on the North York Moors). At first glance, the larger specimen (2) resembles the foliage of a modern cycad. Several others are similar to the foliage of modern ferns and one strange fossil (6) superficially resembles a flower. The authors commented that this last structure was ' apparently the head of the plant No. 2 ', a view that is still supported  today. In the section on 'VEGETABLE REMAINS' in the book, the following account is given: " Figures 2 and 6 of Plate II appear to belong to one plant ; the former...

Visiting Selby Abbey earlier this year, I thought, this is very grand for a small town like Selby. My aunt Alexi quickly reminded me that, in fact, Henry I was born here and the place was once more important. The abbey was founded under William the Conqueror and celebrated its 950th anniversary in 2019. Notice the contrast between the early semicircular arches and doorway and the later Gothic pointed arches. Norman doorway with five orders of shafts with waterleaf capitals and striking chevron designs Selby Abbey was the first Norman Abbey in the North, founded by Royal Charter of William the conqueror and his wife Matilda around 1069. The Charter bestowed lands (Selby, Brayton, Snaith, Flaxley, Rawcliffe, and other places), privileges, and legal immunities (tax exemptions) upon the new foundation. It served to officially establish the Benedictine Abbey and grant it royal protection. Motivations for the grant are thought to have included the birth of William and Matilda's youngest...

The mid-ninth century marked an important phase in Viking expansion across Western Europe. Large fleets penetrated deep inland via river systems, striking at both Christian and Islamic nations. The raids of 844 in the Iberian Peninsula and 845 in Francia are well attested in contemporary sources, and they reveal both the audacity of Viking maritime strategy and the differing responses of the kingdoms they attacked. A decade after the first recorded Viking attack on English soil in 789, a series of raids took place on Francia, initially on the west coast and then, in 820, along the north coast, focussing on Aquitaine. In the 830s, internal conflicts in the Frankish kingdom weakened defences which the Viking ariders were quick to exploit. By 840 they had succeeded in penetrating the Rhine four times in order to sack the Frankish Empire's richest port at Dorestad. The  Annales Bertiniani  describe a raid on Gascony in 840 and, later in the 840s a major raiding campaign began with...

The science of mineralogy progressed rapidly during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but in earlier times, it wasn't always obvious if something was a fossil or a mineral. To illustrate the point, here's an interesting Victorian specimen from the Cumbrian mountain of Skiddaw, once in the collection of the colourful character Charles Ottley Groom-Napier (1839-1894) via the dealer Friedrich Krantz of Bonn. A Groom-Napier specimen of chiastolite from Skiddaw, his label referring to the invented Museum of Mantua and Montferrat (M&M) James Sowerby (1806) recognised the elongate features seen in this specimen as andalusite var chiastolite crystals ("MACLE or Chiastolite"), but noted that J. Woodward had earlier (1729) thought that these were the spines of sea urchins ("A black slate holding in it great numbers of spinulae of an Echinus spatagus "). " Mr. Davey having in the summer of 1804 found this substance on the summit of Mount Skiddaw...

A version of this article is published in Depositsmag . A fascinating aspect of palaeontology is the history of early descriptions and the process of assigning and revising the scientific names of fossils. A recently discovered nineteenth century ammonite specimen discussed here provides a vivid illustration of the sometimes tortuous process and can be connected with several illustrious naturalists and geologists from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. Geology in the first quarter of the nineteenth century The first quarter of the nineteenth century was a particularly important time in the evolution of geological thinking. In Britain, the first long stratigraphic sections were being published, the Geological Society was founded in 1807, the first nationwide geological map was published in 1815, and detailed investigations were underway across the country. A correspondent in the Philosophical Magazine (‘A Constant Reader’ 1815) promoted the work of James Sowerby and contempora...