FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[ian jones]

We rather need an entry for Somerset, or perhaps better, a combined Somerset and Gloucestershire.

There are a few important locations in Somerset and a couple in Gloucestershire too that have produced good specimens. At the moment, there is nowhere to add these.

[Jordi Fabre]

Thanks Ian. Let's James decide about it (and supply a flag! ;-) and we will fix it.

Cheers

[James Catmur]

On holiday so will do it next week. Ian, can you PM me a suitable photo to start the region?

[ian jones]

back home in a couple of days, will do then james

[James Catmur]

Ian

Now ready to go but it may take a while until we can get it set up correctly.

Any thoughts on what to call this region? Simply 'Somerset and Gloucestershire' could work or we could call it 'South West England (excluding Cornwall and Devon)' and then we would need to add in Dorset and Wiltshire.

[ian jones]

Hi James

Probably ought to sweep up other counties in southern England too as none of them really have enough to justify an entry of their own, but do have the odd interesting locations that produce good specimens and ought to be included somewhere.

Somerset is really part of SW England and has a distinct mining history, albeit on a smaller scale than Cornwall and Devon. It ought to perhaps be included with Devon as this is much the way Dines deals with the SW. For the others I guess an entry/entries ought to pick up everything else up too, but probably excluding, the Peak District.

I guess this would mean either a single entry for southern and central England, or individual entries for southern England and for central England. My own feeling is that the former would give a reasonable number of sites whilst the latter would probably be too sparsely populated to make it worthwhile. Of the counties that would be included I would think Leicestershire is probably the most important specimen-wise.

ian

[James Catmur]

Ian

This gets a bit complex! We could just divide England into four regions

South West England: (Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire)
Southern England: (Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, Surrey, London)
Midlands: (Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Lincolnshire)
Northern England: (Cumbria, County Durham, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear)

But that way we lose the counties

Or we could do as above but separate out a few counties (I am told that we cannot add sub-levels). So we would get a list like:
Cornwall
Devon
Somerset
Rest of South West England: (Dorset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire)
Rest of Southern England: (Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Berkshire, Surrey, London)
Derbyshire
Rest of the Midlands: (Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Lincolnshire)
Cumbria
County Durham
Yorkshire
Rest of Northern England: (Cheshire, Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear)

I am still not sure!

James

[Jesse Fisher]

Rather than using artificial political divisions, why not base it on the mining districts. In England these would include the North Pennines (Durham, N. Yorkshire, SW Northumberland, and Alston Moor in Cumbria), West Cumbria, the Southern Pennines (Peaks District), the Mendips, Devon & Cornwall, etc. I'm sure Ian could suggest how to divide up (or not) Wales, and someone familiar with Scotland and Ireland could suggest the same for those countries. Andy Tindle has a number of excellent maps in his book "Minerals of Britain and Ireland" that could be used as a basis for this.

[GneissWare]

[Jordi Fabre]

Good idea Jesse, but sorry to tell you that tecnically is not workable.

James is working to find the best solution, as soon as he will be ready he will communicate it and he will explain the reasons. On the meantime we close this topic to avoid unnecessary approach.

[James Catmur]

I have been thinking this through, and for people who do not know the UK I think it is best if we just use counties, as hopefully they will be known. So I will add a few more counties, and as I get photos of minerals from other ones I can add even more

[Andy Lawton]