Rotunda William Smith Museum of Geology at Rotunda Museum

Rotunda, the William Smith Museums of Geology

The Rotunda Museum is full of fascinating objects, from fossils found on East Yorkshire’s Dinosaur Coast to the Gristhorpe Man, the skeleton and coffin of a Bronze Age man which is the best example of a tree burial in Britain.

Don’t miss the mysterious bone, flint and antler objects from Star Carr, one of the most important Stone Age sites of its kind in Great Britain.

The Rotunda is an exhibit in itself, opened in 1829, it is one of the world’s first purpose-built museums and was built to a design suggested by William ‘Strata’ Smith, known as the father of English Geology. The interior, with its fascinating Georgian gallery, features a frieze showing the geology of the local coastline designed by Smith’s nephew, John Phillips. The original cases tell the history of the museum and the explore the stories of the nineteenth century Scarborough Philosophical Society which brought the collections together.

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