A chance boyhood discovery of an ammonite led to Robert Chandler becoming an internationally recognised expert. Bob’s discovered his first ammonite in a collapsed stone wall on West Bay Road during a school trip. He even recorded the precise time of his find as 18.00 on May 30th 1967. This Read more…
Our Buried in Time exhibition includes several fine fossilised ammonites, but how much do you know about these fossils ? Here’s a brief introduction. Ammonites are marine mollusc cephalopods famous for their spiral shells. Ammonites first appeared around 200 million years ago and lived in warm shallow waters, there was Read more…
We recently had work experience student holiday visitor Bradley come to help us at the Discovery Centre. It was lovely to have him and we wish him all the best for his exams. Here is what he had to say about his day with us! “Hi there, my name is Read more…
Our latest exhibition. ‘Buried in Time’ , tells the story of the area’s history through an amazing selection of fossils from the Jurassic era and marks the 20th Anniversary of the Jurassic Coast becoming a World Heritage Site. West Bay itself, is situated around a third of the way along Read more…
We have been amazed and delighted to have received so many awards of the past few months! To the outsider it might feel as if all we do is put in for awards – which isn’t the case we are too busy welcoming, running the centre and planning new events Read more…
To celebrate the Platinum Jubilee the Discovery Centre has looked back at some of the key events in West Bay since the Queen came to the throne seventy years ago. The June Bank Holiday weekend of 1952 might have been at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II ‘s reign but Read more…
We recently attended the spring party of the 2021/22 Dorset Tourism Awards enjoyed at Sculpture by the Lakes. We were expecting to pick up three awards which were awarded back in February via zoom. Three additional awards were awarded on the night and to our surprise and delight we were Read more…
Hard on the heels of the gold award the West Bay Discovery Centre collected at South-west Tourism Excellence Awards 2021/22, the Centre has now been chosen to go forward to the Visit England national tourism award finals. The Centre stands to win gold, silver or bronze in Ethical, Responsible & Read more…
Each pop up exhibition takes a huge amount of staff and volunteer time to research and produce. Community involvement and expertise is essential, we work closely with local experts to get things right and learn so much along the way! When the exhibition is finished we recycle the materials that Read more…
On Thursday night a few of us headed down to Sandy Park (home of Exeter Chiefs) for the South West Tourism Awards. We were up for the Ethical, Responsible & Sustainable Business Award category and we were amazed when we won GOLD!! It is a really impressive achievement considering we were Read more…