The Bakewell Mineral Show 2008

Saturday saw us making the drive up again to Bakewell for the Bakewell Mineral Show, this time taking Mike Rumsey from the Natural History Museum along for the ride. The Bakewell show is organized every October by the PLMS (Peak Lapidary and Mineral Society), and this year's event was tinged with sadness, as Les Fox, the organizer of the show and secretary of the PLMS died in May this year.



First to be visited was Mike Brooke of Broadstone Minerals, who usually has interesting things for me, and Bakewell was no exception.

First he had this very fabulous hemisphere of Hematite from Egremont, very heavy (it's around 18cm across) and note the interesting circular pattern on the top, that's a contact area where a similar hemisphere would have met it as it grew into a cavity. It's not polished, not a break point, just a smooth natural parting when it came out.



For those with broadband, here's a video showing the specimen a little more effectively. Note that it's damn heavy so I'm having problems holding it and filming at the same time!



But the most spectacular specimen (for a British mineral collector) that Mike had was this phenomenal (for the locality) Axinite with Prehnite from the Meldon BR Quarry in Devon, UK.



Moving along, I stopped to see what Roy Starkey was offering - and it was primarily a nice selection of Scottish metamorphic and pegmatite minerals, self collected. First we have some Kyanite from Craigoshina, Scotland



But my favourite (and this ended up in my collection) was this Schorl and Spessartine with Muscovite from the Carn Gorm Mica Prospect, near Garve in the North West Highalnds of Scotland - size 7cm across.



Finally for the main hall, we looked into the cabinets of Peter Ward, which was an achievement at times as there was plenty of attention from people peering in and asking questions, so much so that I didn't get a chance to talk directly to Peter about these rocks and had to rely on overheard fragments of conversations and, of course, the labels, to tell me what I was seeing.

Firstly, a huge and spectacular Weardale Fluorite. A real Fluorite nerd will no doubt be able to tell exactly what mine this is from, but I didn't see the label there and I'm not prepared to go guessing. So if you know, please leave a comment below! UPDATE: It's from Boltsburn Mine.



and here's the same piece on video:



And an absolute classic - a Campylite, and a spectacular one to boot.

Campylite from Dry Gill, Caldbeck Fells, Cumbria, UK

and the same piece on video (note how the colour looks different on this. The real colour is closer to the photo):

But, by far and away, the best specimens on offer at the show were Peter's recent find of Galena and Fluorite from Rampgill Mine, Cumbria, UK - the small black crystals on the Galena are epitaxial crystals of Sphalerite. This particular plate was well over 30cm wide.

Galena, etc from Rampgill mine, Cumbria, UK

and the same piece again on video:

Finally, for those interested in ugly British type minerals, this super specimen of Mottramite was in the same cabinet. This is from the Grangers shaft at Mottram St Andew, Cheshire in England.

Mottramite from Grangers shaft, Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, England, UK

At 1pm silence was called for, and a presentation was made of the Russell Society medal to Andy Tindle, author of the recent book on British Minerals, for his enormous efforts in promoting British mineralogy.

Andy Tindle with his medal alongside Rick Turner of the Russell Society

Later in the day, we decided to have a trek out into the town of Bakewell, it's a very picturesque town, as you can see here:

Bakewell Town Center

Our mission was to buy the famed Bakewell Pudding (from The Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop).

A Bakewell Pudding!

The Bakewell Pudding is a puff pastry shell with a layer of jam, which is then covered with an odd-looking mixture of eggs, sugar, butter and almonds. They are ridiculously greasy and sticky, but delicious. A more tame, modern, version with an extra layer of icing sugar and a glazed cherry is known as a Bakewell Tart, but the Bakewell Pudding is the real deal.

The town also had a display of owls and birds of prey, for no adequately documented reason, here's a nice Barn Owl:

A Bakewell Barn Owl

Returning back to the show, we spent some time in the sports hall, the larger of the two halls.

The Sports Hall. Can you spot your webmaster in this photo?

Here I came across one of my favourite specimens of the day, this incredible Heulandite and Stilbite specimen from Sgurr nam Boc, Skye, Scotland, which was collected and being offered by Mike Wood. Unfortunately Zeolites just don't come out properly with my feeble photographic skills, so you'll have to make do with a video. I tried to keep the lighting down a little to avoid washing out the subtle colour and tone of the crystals, but it's a lot more vibrant in person. This specimen very quickly ended up in my personal collection.

Walking around, we met our old Cornish friend Nick Carruth, a long way from home but with his usual interesting selection. Here's a photo of Mike and myself perusing his specimens:

Mike Rumsey and myself looking through Nick Carruth's minerals

One that I liked in particular was this, classic cubic Magnetite from the ZCA Mine No. 4, Balmat, St Lawrence Co., New York, USA. Note that Nick is probably the last person in the UK who still needs to buy typewriter ribbons.

Cubic Magnetite from the ZCA Mine No.4

Another very nice piece that Nick had was this Amethyst with Calcite from the Geevor Mine in Cornwall.

Amethyst with Calcite, Geevor Mine, Cornwall, UK

Stephen Moreton, mostly recovered from his horrific collecting accident, was showing off some new finds, including these Baryte on Fluorite from the Justice Level at Langthwaite, North Yorkshire, UK.

Baryte on Fluorite from the Justice Level, North Yorkshire

And he has continued his lucky strikes in Ireland by this time offering some very nice Irish Arsenopyrite crystals in matrix, from the Dhurode Mine, Mizen Peninsula, Co. Cork, Ireland here are a couple of examples:

5cm matrix with Arsenopyrite crystals from Dhurode Mine, Ireland

1cm twinned Arsenopyrite in matrix from the Dhurode Mine, Ireland

Stephen then pointed me along to his frequent partners-in-crime, the Lawsons from Moorland Minerals who had some spectacular Irish Gold from Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo, Ireland. I've seen quite a few pieces recently that were collected in the last couple of years, but nothing beats this one:

Gold in matrix from Croagh Patrick, Ireland

And soon after this, we had to get ready for our long drive north, for the next day we would be spending in the field trying to refind a locality lost 200 years ago. For that, stay tuned, the collecting report will go online soon!

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