Hull Geological Society

East Yorkshire Geology – Museums and collections.

Hull and East Riding Museum in High Street, Hull. Admission free. Permanent display installed in 1997. No geological curator. Collecting area is Vice County 61 (Hull and the East Riding and a bit more including Speeton). The permanent display is of East Yorkshire fossils and geology but the specimens are not identified. The display includes replicas of a Wooley Mammoth and an Ichthyosaur. There is a dinosaur bone from the Speeton Clay on loan from the Natural History Museum. There is a huge geological collection not on display in Castle Warehouse accessible via the Archaeological Curator which includes the Lynden Emery Speeton Clay Collection and the Hull Geological Society Centenary Chalk Collection (transfer in progress). The geological collection rescued from the original Hull Museum destroyed in 1943 is also housed there, including the Mortimer Collection.

Treasure House, Beverley. Admission free. Semi-Permanent display – the present one is about the industrial aspects of Yorkshire Chalk and the previous one was about the Geology of East Yorkshire. There are sometimes temporary geological displays. No geological curator. The designated collecting area is Hull and the East Riding. Also there are some geological specimens that are not on display, including a collection of glacial erratics.

Dinostar Museum in Humber Street, Hull. Admission charge. A private museum all about dinosaurs that has a few specimens from the Yorkshire Coast.

Hornsea Museum. Run by volunteers. Admission charge. Includes a display of local rocks and fossils, including the Ron Harrison Brick and Tile Collection. Hosts an annual Rock and Fossil Roadshow in August.

Rotunda Museum, Scarborough. Admission charge. No geological curator. Permanent and temporary displays. Includes a nearly complete Plesiosaur from the Speeton Clay found in 2001.

Yorkshire Museum, York. Admission charge. Has a geological curator. Permanent and temporary displays. The main research collection is at another site and you have to contact staff to arrange a visit.

Sewerby Hall. Included a display of Chalk Fossils, but I don’t know if it is still on display.

Hull University. No displays but there is a large teaching collection. Contact staff for access. The research collections include the Lewis Penny Quaternary Collection, Yorkshire Type Erratics Collection and figured material from the Kellaways Rock. When the Geology Department closed in 1988 much of the research collection was transferred to Oxford University, this collection has been returned to Hull, but the collection of type and figured material is missing.

Other important collections –

In the Natural History Museum London - John Neale fossils and microfossils from the Speeton Clay; Ted and Willy Wright’s collection of Yorkshire Chalk and Speeton Clay Fossils.

British Geological Survey, Keyworth – Felix Whitham collection of Yorkshire Chalk fossils.

Mike Horne, September 2026

Copyright - Hull Geological Society 2026

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