Our talk this month was entitled history of Hampshire in 10 objects, by Mr Tony Cross from Alton Museum. Mr Cross, a geologist said the objects were his personal choices and that we would probably all have our own things that particularly reminded us of Hampshire’s history.
Most of Hampshire is made of chalk which has developed over 65-95 million years and is up to 1500’ deep in places. There were a lot of volcanoes, no ice caps and most of Northern Europe was under water. Due to these factors the world was warmer, Indeed Iceland had volcanoes under it’s waters.
There is also a lot of flint in Hampshire which apparently is formed from silica which in turn is made from the skeletons of sponges. Shown maps of where the sea was thousands of years ago most of us were surprised by the much smaller landmass and also learned why there’s so much flint used in the local houses.
To mention all we were told would take a book not a few lines, suffice to say it was a very diverse collection of items. Crocodiles, shark’s teeth, fossils, the Roman walls at Silchester, Florence Nightingale and the Titanic to mention just a few.
A very interesting talk from a very well informed gentleman, even the most knowledgeable of our ladies learnt lots of new facts about our county. I for one will be going to check out the Belgian marble fonts at East Meon and Southampton when time permits. Who knew there were so many wonderful treasures on our doorstep?
After thanking our guest we completed our business and enjoyed tea and biscuits before wending our way home.
Our next meeting is on 5th March at 2.30pm at The RBL hall Herriard, our talk entitled Tales from the Green Room by Alan Grace. You will be sure of a warm welcome, so please do come along.
Diane Knight
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