@leweshistorybird.bsky.social
Interested in all things History and all things about Lewes in Sussex. Bit of a Gideon Mantell fan as he was born in my house.
My book is out hoorah! History of St Mary's Lane in #Lewes the childhood home of #gideonmantell. It became Station Street when the railway station was built at the bottom of the street. I will be in Lewes Town Hall tomorrow selling the book #railway200 www.southeastcrp.org/railway-200/
31.07.2025 20:25 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Fancy a walk over the Sussex Downs around #Lewes? Follow in Mantell's footsteps in the poem written by a Mrs Thomas. One day in June 1836. Over 80 verses like these. In publication The Sussex Garland @sussexpast.bsky.social Happy summer solstice.
21.06.2025 10:23 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Today is #Lewes Garlands Day custom to welcome in the summer sussexpast.co.uk/event/garlan... the young Gideon Mantell also took part in the early 1800s as described in his poem.
05.05.2025 09:00 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
It’s still the 200th anniversary year of the naming of some fossil teeth as Iguanodon by Gideon Mantell. So here’s a tooth from the #IsleofWight iguanodontian Comptonatus which we described and named last year. @tweetisaurus.bsky.social
02.05.2025 05:53 — 👍 27 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0Mrs M features a fair bit in my talk tomorrow to the local #Lewes u3a group on Gideon Mantell's life and times in his home town of Lewes. Not just a skilled illustrator & engraver, she spotted the unusual tooth while out on a walk with a friend. Mother to 4 children but ultimately an unhappy wife
10.04.2025 18:30 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
1st #penguin 1865 from Falklands on HMS Harrier. "It used to waddle about the deck, when not well would go & lay its head down on the mens laps. It was sent to the zoological garden but we heard it soon died, it was very queer after we had passed the equator." framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/...
16.03.2025 16:52 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
For #fossilfriday looking forward to the #Lewes Fossil Festival. Activities for children & families at the Linklater Pavilion Sat 8 March 10-12.30. Bring fossils to be identified. Including 12min film of the ‘St George and the Iguanodon’ Mummers Play last seen 2011 www.facebook.com/LewesFossilF...
28.02.2025 15:41 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Sadly not very exciting as the quarry is filled in, but at least the location is marked
21.02.2025 08:17 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Just been for a wet walk out to check the #Cuckfield monument showing the location of the quarry where the first #iguanodon fossils were found in advance of my talk cuckfieldmuseum.org
20.02.2025 16:08 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Portrait of Mary Anning wearing a green cloak and straw bonnet tied with a red ribbon. She has a basket over her right arm and holds a hammer.
A portrait of Charles Lyell, in a. dark coat, a high shirt collar, his hair receding, with long sideburns, and looking quite pleased with himself.
Extract from the published letter from Lyell to Gideon Mantell describing a lecture he had attended in Paris, telling Mantell 'I announced Mary Anning's new Pterodactyle of Lyme'.
20 February 1829: geologist Charles Lyell attended a lecture in Paris, writing to Gideon Mantell that he had 'announced #MaryAnning's new Pterodactyle of Lyme' at the meeting. Anning was well known in Paris for her fossil discoveries, and some of her specimens were already in the museum there.
20.02.2025 09:51 — 👍 16 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 1My favourite bit of the @nhm-london.bsky.social. Saw it as a child and showed it to my own kids. Wonder if they will show it to theirs?
17.02.2025 09:55 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
It's International Day of Women in Science so let's hear it for Mary Ann Mantell wife of Gideon,in the early years of their marriage full supporter of his geological researches, illustrator, engraver and spotter of fossils. Just booked to see puppet show in #Hastings www.hmag.org.uk/event/mrs-ma...
11.02.2025 13:34 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Watercolour and pencil sketch showing a Cretaceous landscape as understood in 1833. A lizard-like Iguanodon is shown at left alongside a large palm tree, its tail whirling over rolling hills in the distance. A meandering river bisects the scene, with other animals along its banks. These are, from the top down, a swimming plesiosaur in the stream, a monitor lizard-like Megalosaurus, stork-like birds, the spiky Hylaeosaurus, another swimming plesiosaur, a somewhat dog-like crocodile, and two turtles. The right side of the image shows fern-like plants, reeds and more palm trees.
Iguanodon was named 200 years ago today, so here's (AFAIK) the first time it appeared in #paleoart: an 1833 watercolour/pencil study "Reptiles Restored, the Remains of Which Are To Be Found in a Fossil State in Tilgate Forest, Sussex" by George Scharf. That's Iguanodon on the left. #Sciart thread...
10.02.2025 09:49 — 👍 390 🔁 80 💬 5 📌 7And there is a talk this evening on that very topic to mark the anniversary. On zoom leweshistory.org.uk/2025/01/19/f...
10.02.2025 08:47 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Just finished a walk around rainy #Lewes in the footsteps of #GideonMantell with a nice group of people. Ended at his house on the High Street where he was the local doctor, brought up 4 children and gathered a vast collection of #fossils and other ancients artefacts. He left for #Brighton in 1833
09.02.2025 12:56 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
It started with a tooth, talk on zoom by Chris Duffin on the discovery of #iguanodon by Gideon and Mary Ann Mantell. On the anniversary of the paper to the @royalsociety.org 200 years ago describing this previously unknown creature. leweshistory.org.uk/2025/01/19/f...
05.02.2025 14:27 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Happy Birthday Gideon Algernon Mantell born this day 3 Feb 1790 in #Lewes namer of #iguanodon now known as #Mantellisaurus after him @nhm-london.bsky.social
03.02.2025 09:48 — 👍 16 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
On the eve of Gideon Mantell's 235th birthday anniversary, born 3 Feb 1790 window display in #Lewes and series of talks and guided walks to commemorate this and also the 200th anniversary of #iguanodon on 10th. gideonmantell.wordpress.com/2024/08/29/2...
02.02.2025 16:25 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Engraving of a man in a bowler hat (or something like it) beside the articulated skeleton of a Triceratops.
On 13 February, I'll be talking about 'Dragons of the Prime - Dinosaurs in the Victorian Literary Imagination' in the @geolsoc.bsky.social's Upper Library. Tickets available here: www.geolsoc.org.uk/02-25-Dragon.... You'll also be able to view the new Gideon Mantell exhibition, 'Wizard of the Weald'
28.01.2025 08:44 — 👍 20 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Mantell's 235th birthday anniversary lecture is entitled Gideon Algernon Mantell: Lone genius or master networker? The role of family, friends and colleagues in the success of a pioneer collector. In #Lewes Town Hall on his birthday 3rd Feb tickets tinyurl.com/2xbj4j6w
23.01.2025 11:08 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Great to see an alternative place to post things. We are having a week of events in #Lewes to commemorate the 200th anniversary of #iguanodon gideonmantell.wordpress.com @hoggroup.bsky.social All welcome
21.01.2025 21:59 — 👍 10 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1
