From Ringstead Bay to British Cenozoic fossils: A collector’s journey into fossil field guides

Steve Snowball (UK)

This article is a response to a request by the editor of Deposits to write about my inspiration and reasons for writing a series of fossil collecting guides, the latest of which is A Field Guide to Collecting British Cenozoic Fossils, by myself and Alister Cruickshanks, and recently reviewed in Deposits.

My personal journey into the world of fossils began at the tender age of nine years, when a kindly uncle handed me a large box of fossils (mostly plesiosaur bones, as it turned out) that he’d picked up while working at the London Brick Company brick fields at Bletchley in Buckinghamshire. The pits were in the Oxford Clay Formation, and they had provided many museums with wonderful fossil specimens.

My interest was certainly sparked when the Natural History Museum in South Kensington invited me to leave the fossils for identification. Two weeks later, I returned to find that they had selected two specimens for donation (a humerus of a young plesiosaurian and a caudal vertebra of a marine crocodile).

In the years to follow, my interest in collecting fossils was mostly confined to family holidays, but in 1975, I began a four-year degree course at the teacher training college in Weymouth, Dorset. In my first few years, I rented a small, thatched cottage at Ringstead Bay. It was a seasonal holiday let and my passion for the beautiful Dorset coast and the fossils found there began. Back then, Ringstead was very isolated; it was almost deserted and very rural, with no caravans, beach cafés, car parks, toilets or weekend tourists. Access was along a long, winding lane leading to the A353 and was rendered totally inaccessible during the spell of deep snow during the winter of 1975-76. But it was magical. The back garden slipped effortlessly onto the beach below, where the Ringstead Coral Bed was exposed.

Other fossils were found here too, some of which were quite spectacular: crocodile skulls, pliosaur vertebrae, large ammonites, corals and other material. Ringstead Bay had certainly cast its spell on me and the magic had also clearly touched and inspired geologist and palaeontologist, William Joscelyn Arkell, who had lived at a chalet called ‘Faraways’, the family holiday home at Ringstead, to write his vast and unequalled tome, ‘The Jurassic System in Great Britain’ in 1933, and which established his international reputation.

I returned to Ringstead annually, after my course had finished and my career as a teacher in West Sussex had taken off. My own family also enjoyed many holidays there, exploring the bay, the majestic Chalk headland of White Nothe, the sandy beaches, the fossils and its magic was still intact.

I started writing my first book in 2017. A Guide to Fossil Collecting in England and Wales was published by Siri Scientific Press and it has been a well-received and steady seller ever since. The co-author, Craig Chapman – founder of UKAFH (the United Kingdom Association of Fossil Hunters) – managed to get his name on the cover before ill health took over. The book was aimed at amateur collectors and was the culmination of my time at UKAFH where, over several years, I helped organise a comprehensive timetable of fossil collecting field trips right across Great Britain, to some of the very best sites (including Ringstead Bay) and with a strong emphasis on families, site safety and educating the next generation. Many of the photos in the book were taken at the various UKAFH events. The team of event leaders were hard working and exceptional, each volunteering their time and expertise.

UKAFH was sponsored by UKGE, of which Alister Cruickshanks was the owner and UKAFH was eventually absorbed into his parent organisation. During this time, I was also the editor of Trilobite Times, a free, downloadable, bi-monthly magazine for UKAFH members and a celebration of their finds at the many sites visited. We were notably a part of the filming of the BBC series, Dinosaur Britain on Lyme Regis beach, with Dean Lomax and Ellie Harrison, the latter of Countryfile fame.

After 38 years working in education, I retired as a headteacher and education adviser for West Sussex and, with my children now grown up, my wife and I relocated to Dorset. Here, I joined up with Craig Chivers, who I had initially met on a UKAFH field trip to Lyme Regis and co-wrote a trilogy of books; A Guide to Fossil collecting on the West Dorset Coast (2018), A Guide to Fossil Collecting on the South Dorset Coast (2020) and A Guide to Fossil collecting on the East Dorset Coast (2021). All were published by Siri Scientific Press. Craig is a gifted, highly proficient, fossil preparator and many of his photos of prepared specimens form some of the photos in these books, which remain in demand.

The books also cemented a long-term relationship with Andreas Kurpisz, a paleo-artist who is based in Berlin. Andreas has contributed his artwork of reconstructed scenes of life in deep time to every book, to date. Jurassic Fossils of the West Dorset Coast: A Time Traveller’s Journal (2022) was the final book by Craig and myself, having exhausted the theme of the Dorset coast, albeit temporarily. The book explored the notion of two Edwardian time travellers, whose journal of their visit to the beaches of West Dorset had been found. It allowed a blend of art and science, in a highly illustrated book, presented in the style befitting the early twentieth century.

Having moved to the southwest of the country, I investigated the inland fossil fields of the Beacon Limestone, formerly known as the Junction Bed, in Somerset. Here, ammonites literally fell from tractor tyres onto the road surfaces of the network of small lanes in that area . Fossils, particularly ammonites, were in abundance and could be simply picked off of the fields, on land that sat directly on top of the underlying limestone strata.

Establishing good relations with local farmers and landowners proved key to collecting here, as many had been badly treated in the past by unauthorised fossil collectors and which had often resulted in crop damage, as well as trespass. Understandably, such events soured feelings towards fossil hunters.

I made contact with the late John Huxtable, who took me out to the productive sites that he knew well. John was a kindly man, who also gave freely of his time and expertise and introduced me to some of the most significant landowners, who knew him well. With the help of a local collector, Paul Christopher, a self-published book using Amazon KDP, A Guide to Fossils of the Beacon Limestone Formation in South Somerset (2022) emerged. This was being a much-needed field guide to both the identification of the many ammonite species found here and to the responsible collection of fossils in the fields around Ilminster.

From a practical perspective, the books are designed to be production-ready. I have designed the covers, laid out the entire contents in a format ready for printing, with all images in high resolution at 300 dpi. With the price of paper, inks and printing costs being adversely affected by the war in Ukraine, the decision to move to print on demand was taken by Dave Penney, the owner of Siri Scientific Press. And so it was that A Field Guide to the Jurassic Fossils of the Fleet Lagoon, Dorset (2023), was published by Sir Scientific Press but using Amazon KDP.

My collaboration with co-author, Heather Middleton, on this title has proved to be another example of how strong friendships can develop through a love of fossils and the book has been critically acclaimed by many. Heather has collected at Smallmouth Sands, near Weymouth, for over 15 years and her superb collection of specimens from the Lower Kimmeridge Clay found there is unsurpassed. Smallmouth Sands has been described in the JNCC Site Review Fossil Reptiles of Great Britain (MJ Benton and PS Spencer, 1995) as being “one of the most diverse assemblages of Kimmeridge Clay reptiles anywhere in the world” and the site is one of those hidden treasures to the local collector.

Heather meticulously collected and recorded her finds of pliosaur, ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, turtle, crocodile and pterosaur fossils, along with every known mollusc, fish, cephalopod (and more), from this site. Along with my own collection of fossils from the varied rock formations along the shores of the Fleet Lagoon, these are now recorded for posterity within this book. Heather recently donated her invaluable collection of over 500 rare teeth and bones of pterosaurs from this location to the Etches Collection Museum of Jurassic Marine Life at Kimmeridge. She has, along with myself and others, contributed to a paper, The pterosaur assemblage of the Kimmeridge Clay (Jurassic, Kimmeridgian) from the Smallmouth Sands locality, Weymouth, UK and which is currently awaiting publication.

The books, although not intentionally so, have become part of a series, with an emphasis on being presented in an attractive and similar format, highly illustrated throughout, with up-to-date site information and in full colour. For the next book, it seemed almost logical to move from Dorset, eastwards along the coast to neighbouring Hampshire and onwards again to Kent and then East Anglia, where the Cenozoic rocks and fossils are on display. This led to the next book, A Field Guide to Collecting British Cenozoic Fossils (2026) and where the undisputed expert was Alister Cruickshanks. Alister has collected with his wife, Alison, and Ian, his father, along the Suffolk coast for many years, amassing a unique and important collection of fossil material from here and from the neighbouring counties of Essex and Norfolk.

Alister had always wanted to be involved in writing a book about the remarkable fossils from the fast-eroding cliffs near his home and the collaboration between us all finally came to fruition.

The Cruickshanks’ long-standing relationship with Sir Dick Mol, led to his contribution to the book also. Dick, knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, is a world-renowned expert on mammoths and fossils from the Doggerland tract of submerged land between Holland [JT1] and the UK, a rich source of vertebrate fossils from the last Ice Age. The intention, once again, was to present a clear, up-to-date guide to collecting fossils from locations that presented safe, accessible fossil productive sites, be it locations, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, or West Runton, on the north coast of Norfolk.

My fossil collecting days have significantly waned in recent years. Clambering up cliffs, or traversing rocky foreshores, are now in the past, but there’s one more book still waiting to be written. With good luck, A Guide to Collecting Fossils from the Lower Kimmeridge Clay in Dorset should appear in 2027 and is already being prepared. This book will probably finalise the ‘series’ and for old time’s sake, I‘ll revisit the three principal fossil bearing sites of Black Head near Osmington Mills, Smallmouth Sands and of course, Ringstead Bay, a place, perhaps, where it all began – and where it seems fitting to return one last time.