March saw the culmination of our biggest public engagement project yet, as we invited thousands of people to discover our Geopark in the Dark event in the ruins of Bradgate House.
Inspired by the Tower of London poppies to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War, we wanted to offer local people the chance to create something through a series of workshops, that they could then come and see in Charnwood Forest. Poppies, obviously, wouldn’t be an suitable item for the public to ‘create’ to represent us but we did have our own collection of amazing fossils that we could reproduce, which would work even better!
After Christmas, as the finale event discussions were in full-swing, the fossil-making production line went into full swing, with specially designed plaster-moulds being produced for our models of Charnia masoni, and everything from 3D printing to toilet-roll tubes and custom beer-mat-cardboard templates being utilised for the creation of our other fantastic fossils. Soon, there was a whole army of volunteers helping us churn-out endless numbers of fossils ready for our ‘Paint the Precambrian’ Roadshow.
Thousands of fossils were decorated by Leicester children as part of our Paint The Precambrian Roadshow
The Roadshow ran for the full nine days of February half-term, visiting three shopping centres across Leicester: Haymarket, Fosse Park, and Highcross. The turn out was amazing, with people of all ages and backgrounds stopping what they were doing to help us decorate hundreds of fossils each day. And each person that helped us was given a postcard with an early-bird access code to the Geopark In The Dark event at Bradgate Park.
Even though the ‘Paint the Precambrian’ Roadshow had been a huge success, we still wanted more fossils to bring our seabed to life and so we engaged the help of the amazing primary, secondary, and SEND schools within and on the outskirts of Charnwood Forest, who, in a matter of less than 2 weeks decorated over a thousand more models for us.
The Geopark has commissioned a series of new wooden fossil sculptures by Peter Leadbeater. All of these will have a permanent home in the Geopark.
As well as the thousands of fossil models decorated by local children (and a few by our volunteers!), our Geopark In The Dark event also featured five newly commissioned chainsaw-carved sculptures of Geopark fossils, produced by Leicestershire artist Peter Leadbeater. We also produced new exhibition panels to share the story of our fossils, and worked with the superb Czech palaeoartist Martin Lisec to create a series of animations that brough to life our amazing 560 million year old fossils.
Many schoolchildren who had decorated fossils visited during the daytime, finding their fossil amongst the displays.
Over the course of Friday 13th – Sunday 15th March, thousands of people experienced the Geopark in the Dark, with even more coming during the day on Saturday and Sunday to see the exhibition and try to find the individual fossils they had decorated. During the evening shows, attendees were given the chance to view the illuminated fossil models, sculptures, and exhibitions, as well as seeing the new fossil animations projected inside the Bradgate House Chapel.
At night the models made by local schoolchildren were illuminated, recreating the ancient seafloor from 560 million years ago.
Each show ended with an amazing light show projected onto the ruins. Produced by Lindley Productions, this illuminated spectacular guided viewers through Charnwood Forest’s 600 million year old history, through plate tectonics and some of the first animal fossils, through ice ages and romans, to Lady Jane Grey and the discovery of our fossils by two schoolchildren.
The lightshow included the story of Charnwood Forest’s fossils – some of the first animals to evolve on Earth.
We could not have done it without the amazing support of the staff and volunteers of the Bradgate Park Trust, our friends and colleagues at The National Forest, and the dedication of our own Charnwood Forest Geopark volunteers. We sincerely want to thank all those involved, in whatever way, for helping to make the Paint the Precambrian and Geopark in the Dark events such a success and helping us to share the amazing story of Charnwood Forest in such a spectacular way with so many people. Thanks also, as always, to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, for supporting this event, through the Charnwood Forest Landscape Partnership Scheme.
For those there weren’t able to join us for the event, we hope to share a video on our website soon.
The lightshow told the story of Charnwood Forest’s long history, including ice ages, conquests, and Queens.