Rotunda Museum

The Rotunda Museum stands in Scarborough, a seaside town in North Yorkshire. Built in 1829, it is one of the oldest purpose-built museums still in use in the United Kingdom. The curved building is listed as a grade II* structure and houses a leading collection of Jurassic geology. It was designed by Richard Hey Sharp of York to a plan suggested by William Smith, known as the ‘Father of English Geology’. Smith had worked on the Yorkshire coast after his release from debtors’ prison, where he established methods of identifying geological strata through fossils. The museum’s walls once showed the order of rocks along the Yorkshire coast, drawn inside the dome by Smith’s nephew John Phillips. The collection contains over 5,500 fossils and 3,000 minerals, including many type specimens first described by Smith. Among its strengths are Middle Jurassic fossil plants and Cretaceous fossils from Speeton Clay and Chalk. The museum also holds Ice Age items such as mammoth teeth and specimens from Kirkdale Cave. A Carboniferous plant collection is preserved here as well. In 2007 the entire collection was catalogued and conserved, and striking pieces now appear in the refurbished displays. These show the quality and range of fossils found along the Yorkshire Dinosaur Coast, which runs from Redcar to Flamborough. The building was restored in 2008 with grants and private funds to return it to its original role as a geological showcase. A new entrance and lift were added, along with a Shell Geology Now! gallery examining current research. Unique glass cabinets from 1850, restored by specialists near Knaresborough, now display models such as George Cayley’s flying machine and an early steam car by Sir Edward Harland. The spiral staircase was replaced to allow a lift shaft, and the refurbishment created office space and toilet facilities. The museum reopened as The Rotunda – The William Smith Museum of Geology, serving as a gateway to the Dinosaur Coast.