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Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473-1543, was a Renaissance academic and astronomer of Polish/German descent. Shortly before his death his book was published in which he expanded on his discovery that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the centre of our solar system, which brought his ideas into direct conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. Even Martin […]

First ones of the season seen recently either beside Middlegate or New Quarry – periwinkle, buttercup, cowslip (see pic.), speedwell, white deadnettle and single flowering head of cock’s-foot grass. All early, particularly the grass, except for speedwell and white deadnettle, one of the few plants for which flower-heads can be found throughout the year in favourable

Illustration – Mid-19th century lithograph entitled ‘Museum and Cliff Bridge, Scarboro’. The image shows most of the Rotunda (see last blog) with the headland-top Castle in the distance – the Grand Hotel had not then been built. Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, like Smith was an ardent geologist, but is better remembered as a naturalist following his

William Smith, 1769-1839, in 1801 created the first geological map of England, Wales and southern Scotland. In 1815 he published Delineation of Strata of England and three years later Strata Identified by Organized Fossils. His fossil collection is on display at the British Museum. These studies showed clearly that life-forms changed across time, thus heralding the

In the booklet Descriptions of East Yorkshire: Leland to Defoe (published by the East Yorkshire Local History Soc. in 1985) Donald Woodward’s extract from Defoe’s Tour (1720s) includes the following phrase when writing of the North Yorkshire coast ‘here are the snake stones, of which nothing can be said but as one observes of them,

Good time of year to walk Middlegate lane, high up the scarp slope above South Ferriby and Horkstow villages. Profusion of primroses in South Ferriby churchyard, especially in the older burial areas – this and Paull churchyard surely the best in Humberside for seeing spring flowering plants. Scattered small colonies of blue and white violets under the