Explore how our wonderous museum came to be!
Our History
For 20 years it had been the ambition of Steve Etches to donate his collection to a local museum but where, how, when had been an impossible question to answer. The momentum was growing along with Steve’s collection, amassing over 2000 pieces. Steve was almost getting pushed out of his own home by a determined set of 150-million-year-old dead animals. For every step forward there seemed to be two steps back. Then, two fortuitous meetings happened that acted as catalysts. One at a social event that brought a set of stubbornly creative geniuses together and the other took place at a very sad time after the funeral of Major John Mansel. Major Mansel was instrumental in helping Steve set up his collection by allowing him access to Smedmore Estate property, to collect the fossils. Steve had a wistful chat with a local farmer and the chairman of the Kimmeridge village hall committee - they realised they could combine forces to create a museum and village hall in one building, in the village of Kimmeridge. Thus, The Kimmeridge Trust, a charitable institution, was born and additional Trustees were drafted in, each with the necessary skill sets to help drive the project forward. It was a period of ten action packed years - including many setbacks, obstacles, fundraising and joyous breakthroughs before The Etches Collection Museum finally opened – The dream was realised.
Our Conception
“The ideas really came from knowing what I didn’t want and some inspiration from other places. I had been to Leicester Museum and they had a small exhibit with a CGI crocodile and I had heard about CGI and I thought it’d be really useful in displaying and bringing to the fossils to life. I was also inspired by the Sedgewick Museum and just how much they have on display. I wanted to display as much as I could within reason. What I didn’t want was long Latin names and overcomplicated descriptions of the fossils. I wanted to create a more simplistic relatable approach with clear understandable English a few line drawings and diagrams to help visualise and understand the fossil’s importance. I also really hate too much minimalism in museum displays. I wanted to fit as much in as possible while telling a clear and articulate story about the life of Kimmeridgian seas. The workshop was a must-have, the idea that people could watch and see what happens during the preparation of the fossils was of great importance to me. The design itself was crafted from the ideas outlined by the museum designers. I had a choice of themes and how we may lay it out and it was then designed by the professionals.” - Steve Etches
Building our wonderful museum!
The build of our museum was a momentous time and we were so pleased it was finally happening. The idea that Steve’s wonderful collection would finally have a proper home was something we were very excited about. The build took in excess of 18 months and as you can probably guess was a rather large job. As with all things not everything went according to plan, mistakes were made and due to such we lost out on certain things that were planned for the build. With mistakes comes the need for extra money to fund fixing them meaning budgets had to be cut elsewhere. For example the display cabinets aren’t up to the standard required to preserve our highly pyritic collection. Despite the costings and mistakes the museum allows for a wonderful visitor experience and is an incredibly pretty building. It has and does allow us to tell the stories of the Kimmeridgian time in the wonderful prehistoric aquarium setting Steve imagined.