Big-Eye - The Caldecotte Monster

In September 1982 excavations for Caldecotte Lake, Milton Keynes, had got down to Oxford Clay. Lying on the bared surface, smeared with mud and jumbled together, a fossil skeleton was discovered. Milton Keynes Development Corporation called in experts from Leicester University's Geology Department.


Days of painstaking work followed. First the skeleton was carefully mapped so that the position of each bone was recorded. Then the whole skeleton was lifted, bone by bone, and taken to Leicester for conservation.


The skeleton was that of a kind of Ichthyosaur, an extinct sea creature. It lived in a warm sea which covered this area more than 165 million years ago.



At Leicester each bone was cleaned and repaired. Some of the skeleton was found encased in hard limestone, and this had to be sawn and split to reveal the boned. Finally the skeleton was assembled in its proper order, mounted and cased for display in the Reference Library at Milton Keynes Central Library. If you would like to see the monster here are the library's opening hours.


Back to Local Studies Home Page