Tom Sharpe

Photograph of beer in a pint glass labelled ‘Harvey’s Brewery’ which is in Lewes in East Sussex

Photograph of beer in a pint glass labelled ‘Long Man’ from the Long Man Brewery and with the image of the Chalk figure of the Long Man of Wilmington.

A couple of scenic photographs from a recent trip to Sussex.

A red postbox inset into a yellow and red brick wall.

#PostboxSaturday: a GR wallbox at Lewes station, East Sussex. Local palaeontologist Gideon Mantell would have posted his letters here if he hadn’t moved away in 1833 and died in London in 1852.

An early 19th century lithograph of a small ichthyosaur skeleton, its large head to the left, showing the ribs, paddles and part of the tail.

#FossilFriday: a small ichthyosaur from Lyme Regis in an 1827 lithograph by Oxford engraver Nathaniel Whittock (1791–1860). The specimen was probably in the collection of Lord Cole (1807–1886), then a student at Oxford, who may have purchased it from #MaryAnning. It is now @nhm-london.bsky.social.

Meet Mary. She's 12, fearless, and endlessly curious. Watch the trailer for #MaryAnning, the new animated film by Ticinese director @marcelbarelli.bsky.social — in Swiss cinemas on November 26, 2025! www.helvetiamotionarts.com/mary-anning-...

Chiselled benchmark in a block of pale oolitic limestone.

#BenchmarkMonday: a much-weathered benchmark cut in oolitic limestone, Market Tower, Lewes, East Sussex.

Blue painted white ceramic plate with a portrait of Jane Austen.

As it’s Jane Austen’s 250th year, here she is on a Wedgwood ceramic plate from the Famous Women dinner service of 48 blank plates decorated by artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in 1931. The plates portrayed 12 writers, 12 queens, 12 performers & 12 women famed for their beauty.

Monochrome photograph of a shingle beach with two people lying on it with legs crossed and a boat offshore in a clam sea.

Beach scene.

Correction: It’s on The Street in Rodmell, not Mill Lane!

Red postbox set into a flint wall.

#PostboxSaturday: George VI wall box, Mill Lane, Rodmell, East Sussex.

Extract from Cumberland's article: 'Fossil Saurians. Several beautiful specimens of fossil saurians, or animals of the lizard tribe, have, as our scientific readers are aware, been found at Lyme, in Dorsetshire; but the world would to this day have remained ignorant of the treasures England possessed, but for the patient labours of three female pioneers in this service, viz. Mary Anning, a dealer; Miss Congrieve, and Miss Philpots, residents, who for years had been collecting and preserving these bodies from the wreck of the coast; the two last without any other view than the gratification of a laudable curiosity, and who, with unequalled liberality, communicated their collections to every man of science that visited the place; and it is to liberal minds like theirs, and Miss Bennet's, of Wiltshire that we owe the first rescuing of these natural gens from the spoilers.'

25 July 1829: Bristol artist & fossil collector George Cumberland publishes an article about fossil marine reptiles, highlighting the important contributions of 'three female pioneers' at Lyme Regis: #MaryAnning, Anne Congreve and Elizabeth Philpot, and of Etheldred Benett in Wiltshire.

Photograph of Thomas Hawkins sitting at a table and wearing a dark jacket and waistcoat.

A large ichthyosaur skeleton on display at the Natural History Museum, London. The skull was found by Mary Anning and sold to Hawkins who arranged excavation of the rest of the specimen.

25 July 1810: birth of the eccentric Thomas Hawkins, collector of Lias marine reptiles from Street and Lyme Regis. His fossils, including a large ichthyosaur found by #MaryAnning in 1832, can be seen @nhm-london.bsky.social. Others are @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social & @morethanadodo.bsky.social.

Silhouette of Etheldred Benett, c.1837; title page of her Catalogue of the Organic Remains of the County of Wiltshire; extract from J Sowerby's Mineral Conchology 1818, with details of Benett's stratigraphic section of Chicksgrove Quarry.

2025 sees the 250th anniversary of the birth not only of Jane Austen & JMW Turner, but also of Wiltshire geologist Etheldred Benett, born 22 July 1775. A woman of independent means, she built up a significant collection of fossils & corresponded with many of the leading geologists of the day.

Tipperary? That’s a long way.

Photograph of a dark, heavy sky above a church and dovecot.

Storm brewing.

Illustration of 'Lunar Scenery' from Mary Roberts' 1837 book, showing a river valley cutting through jagged mountains with trees in the foreground.

If you like the 'Irish Elk', you might like this wonderful illustration and description of lunar scenery in 'The Progress of Creation'.

Red pillar box with cypher of Edward VII.

#PostboxSaturday: Edward VII pillar box, Summertown, Oxford.

A drawing of a man in a top hat looking at the skeleton of a giant deer with large antlers, captioned 'Cervus megaceros (Irish Elk) In the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society. Extinct species.'

#FossilFriday: the 'Irish Elk', Megaloceros, in Dublin, as figured in 'The Progress of Creation', 1837, by Mary Roberts (1788–1864).

View of a field full of red poppies with trees and hills in the distance.

Local field looking particularly fine this morning with an abundance of poppies.

Indeed it is. I’m hoping that slow attrition might gradually consign it to the bin. But this is just one of many ingrained Mary myths that are hard to shift.

Portrait of Mary Anning wearing a green cloak and straw bonnet tied with a red ribbon.

Extract from 'Letters and sounds' with what seems to be the first publication of 'She sells sea-shells'.

Title page of 'Letters and Sounds: An introduction to English reading' by Alexander Melville Bell.

Extract from 'Before the Ark' by Alan Charig and Brenda Horsefield, 1975, the earliest reference found so far linking - erroneously - 'she sells sea shells' to Mary Anning.

From what I see online, it's time for a reminder that the tongue-twister 'she sells sea shells' has *nothing* to do with #MaryAnning. It's an 1850s elocution exercise, elaborated into a music hall song by 1908. The earliest reference linking it with Anning is 1975. blogs.loc.gov/folklife/201...

Indeed. One of several by Elizabeth Philpot of a specimen in her collection.

Title page of Remarkable Creatures by Tract Chevalier, signed and dedicated in fossil sepia ink by the author.

Tracy Chevalier, Paddy Howe and Tom Sharpe on stage at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis in October 2009.

A good year for fossil sepia. In Lyme Regis in October 2009 Tracy Chevalier was signing copies of her new novel Remarkable Creatures with Lias sepia ink procured by Lyme Regis Museum's geologist Paddy Howe. Tracy, Paddy and I shared a platform at the Marine Theatre talking about #MaryAnning.

Close view of a red and white sandstone pillar inside a church, with blue seats beyond. The pillar is weathered and has an Ordnance Survey benchmark cut into it.

#BenchmarkMonday: an unusual siting for a benchmark – indoors, on a pillar inside St Mary's Church, Haddington. Prior to restoration of the church in the early 1970s, this part of the building was still in ruins (thanks to Henry VIII in 1548), so the pillar was external when the benchmark was cut.

Red post box set into a white wall.

#PostboxSaturday: EIIR wall box, Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Interesting! Not seen this one before, but it has many elements clearly derived from Henry De la Beche's 1829-31 Duria Antiquior (or from another of its derivatives).

Portrait of Mary Anning in her green cloak and straw bonnet, with a basket over her arm and a hammer in her hand.

The Baker Street Bazaar, London, an early department store/mall.

Extract from Mary Anning's notes on her London visit: 'Saturday Baker Street Baar in which was the Diorama of St Peters at Rome...'

11 July 1829: with her host, Charlotte Murchison, #MaryAnning visited the Baker Street Bazaar in London where she saw a panorama of Rome (and perhaps had a little retail therapy) before calling at the Regent Street shop of natural history dealer GB Sowerby, her somewhat ineffectual London agent.

Bones, jaws and teeth of cave hyaena from Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire.

#FossilFriday: cave hyaena fossils from Kirkdale Cavern, Yorkshire, used by William Buckland in his 1822 study of cave faunas, Reliquiae Diluvianae, and currently on display @morethanadodo.bsky.social's Breaking Ground exhibition.

Moon rising over a low range of hills.

Lammermuir moonrise.

Colourful cover of Prehistoric Worlds by Ashley Hall and Claire McElfatrick.

Belatedly sorting through some of my acquisitions from the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival last month, one of which is the wonderfully illustrated Prehistoric Worlds by @ladynaturalist.bsky.social & Claire McElfatrick. It was great to meet Ashley at Lyme Regis Museum & have her sign my copy of her book.

Wide view across fields to distant hills.

Beautifully clear view this evening in East Lothian across a landscape underlain by early Carboniferous sedimentary and volcanic rocks towards the Lammermuir Fault scarp and the Silurian turbidites of the Lammermuir Hills.