Lapworth Museum of Geology

The Lapworth Museum of Geology is located in the Aston Webb building at the University of Birmingham, where it forms a key part of the Earth Sciences department. The Lapworth dates back to 1880 and retains the original, Edwardian display cases, although it has recently won funding from the Lottery Heritage Fund for redevelopment.

The Lapworth Museum is named after Charles Lapworth, who was a geologist who worked in furthering the understanding of how mountains are made. He was the first Professor of Geology at Mason College, which became the University of Birmingham in 1898.

Charles Lapworth - Source

Much of the items on display at the museum are fossils, including shells, trilobites, crinoids and ammonites. There are samples of the Solnhofen Limestone as well as mineral samples from the surrounding area, especially the coal mining history of the Black Country.

Entry to the museum is free and it is fully wheelchair accessible. 

You can read more about the Natural Science collections ofthe West Midlands here.

The Lapworth Museum has a Twitter feed!

Trilobite!

 

The Lapworth Museum can be found in the Aston Webb building at the University of Birmingham (A Block).  The University can be reached by train on the cross-city line; head for University station. If you've never been to campus before, aim for the clock tower - Old Joe is in the courtyard in front of the Aston Webb building (it is the curved redbrick building - also worthy of a blog post due to the detail and sculptures above the main doors!)

The University can also be reached by bus - the 61 and 63 stop on the Bristol Road. The 98 and 99 stop by the Medical School, near the railway station. You can also drive, though parking on campus is limited, especially during term time. There are disabled bays near the museum entrance. 

The University website has a collection of maps and PDFs available - see here for more.

Bournville Carillon

The Carillon at Bournville is a tower at the school opposite the green, and it has a clock face on it. Some days, especially in the summer, a sweet sound of bells can be heard over the air - this is the carillon playing!

A carillon is an instrument composed of bells that are played in a series to produce a melody. It was erected in 1906 and has 48 bells.

University of Birmingham Blue Plaque; Edward Elgar

"Sir Edward Elgar, composer, became the University's first Professor of Music in 1905"

Cotteridge Park

Cotteridge Park is a place I’ve known about but only fully explored sometime this year. I was never sure of how to get there, which road I should go down, if it really was the park I could see from the train? Turns out it is the park I see from the train, it’s really easy to get to and I could quite happily wonder around it for a while.

Dear old Wiki tells me that the park is 22 acres in size and is one of the Victorian parks of the city. Didn’t know that. It also has a boulodrome and last year was awarded a Green Flag award!

I quite like this park because there are lots of boulders. I like boulders. I had to ask a couple of people if they would move so I could get a photo of the boulders. These boulders (this word looks silly now) are thought to be more glacial erratics! Lots of these scattered around the place. If all of the Cotteridge Park rocks are glacial erratics, that gives a total of 10 found so far, since I started the blog.

Every year there is a small free festival in Cotteridge Park, called CoCoMad. I went last year (it was very muddy) and it was BRILLIANT. A good day out despite the rain! There are stalls selling crafts and merch and food, a main stage and an acoustic tent area, a shopping trolley pageant and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Cotteridge has Anglo-Saxon roots and the name is first recorded in the early 1300s. There is quite an in-depth history written here which is worth a read if you want to know more!

Cotteridge Park is also on Twitter!

You can read more about it here and here.

More pics:

A pretty awesome willow tunnel!