A gleaming gallery in New Walk Museum houses some of the world’s oldest objects. These include local fossils, such as the beloved ‘Rutland dinosaur’ (a Middle Jurassic cetiosaurus) and Charnia masoni, discovered in Charnwood Forest by young Roger Mason. Mason later became a respected professor of metamorphic petrology. Want to see something really old? Don’t miss the Barwell meteorite, a large chunk of asteroid that landed in this Leicestershire village on Christmas Eve in 1965. It was formed way back – 4.57 billion years ago to be precise, making it just a wee bit older than our own planet.
Read more
