Folkestone Museum has incredible collections of rocks, minerals and fossils, including the remains of dinosaurs, prehistoric sharks and the mighty mammoth.
Many of these fossils come from the White Cliffs, the Warren and East Wear Bay -one of the best places to find fossils in Britain - which were, at different times, the bed of a warm prehistoric ocean, and a coastal zone teeming with life.
Come face to face with Folkestone’s very own dinosaur Acanthropholis Horridus Huxley and explore its bones and body armour in stunning 3D detail. Find out about Iguanodon one of the first dinosaurs discovered… and the wealthy Victorians who dined inside one. And investigate a mysterious three-toed footprint from Folkestone beach. But be careful… its owner was related to T-Rex!
This topic explores the fossilised remains of creatures that lived in the Great Chalk Sea that covered Kent in the Cretaceous over 65 million years ago… including the jaws, teeth and vertebrae of sharks, icthyosaurs and fossil fish… and one very lucky ammonite, with bite marks in its shell.
We find out about local sedimentary rocks including the chalky White Cliffs (made from the bodies and poo of billions of tiny sea creatures), razor-sharp flint and Kent Coal… and reveal what you can tell from cutting open a coprolite (prehistoric poo).
Coming closer to the present, we explore the giants of the Ice Ages and the warmer periods between them - including mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, hippo and straight-tusked elephant… all tucked up safe in the Bayle Bone Bed! Not forgetting how fossils were formed and the uses of rocks in history and today.
So, pick up your palaeontologist’s hammer and join our exciting expedition...
