Sir David Attenborough backs World Heritage Site’s tenth anniversary

AN EMINENT geologist and author of many books on the red rocks of Sidmouth, will cut a special cake marking the 10th anniversary of the Jurassic Coast at Sidmouth Museum next week.

And the anniversary has the backing of naturalist and wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

On Tuesday, December 13, the Church Street museum will welcome Dr. Ramues Gallois to cut the cake at 12.45pm, when it opens specially that day, from 11am to 3pm, for the public to celebrate the occasion.

The Jurassic Coast was formally designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in December 2001, placing it alongside the likes of the Grand Canyon and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as one of the planet’s greatest natural treasures.

It remains the only natural World Heritage Site in England and the only place in the world where the 185 million year history of the Mesozoic period – the age of the dinosaurs – can be studied in a virtually unbroken sequence of rocks stretching over a distance of 95 miles from Orcombe Point, Exmouth, to Ballard Down, Purbeck.

The museum’s own geologists, curator, Dr Bob Symes and Roger LeVoir, will be on hand to talk about this unique Heritage Coast.