Creswell Crags Rock Art celebrations make lasting impression

The 20th anniversary was marked by a weekend of celebrations.

Attendees to the event included Dr Paul Bahn, one of the team who discovered the art at Creswell Crags 20 years ago and relayed the story of this amazing discovery to audiences throughout the weekend.

To ensure everyone was able to celebrate the anniversary of this amazing discovery, Lhoist provided funding to allow residents to see the art for themselves.

Church Hole, which is only normally open to the public through bookable cave tours, was open for people to drop in and ‘pay-what-they-could’, so that as many people as possible could view the rock art – and more than 400 people did so over the weekend.

The Creswell Crags Learning Team were in the Meadow with archaeological Dig Boxes, to help families experience how archaeologists find out about life in the Ice Age. Children were also able to try their hand at creating their own piece of portable art.

As a lasting commemoration of the anniversary celebrations in April and to acknowledge the support of Lhoist, a Wild Cherry Tree was planted in the Meadow on Thursday June 1 by Adam Taylor, UK Operations Manager for Lhoist and his colleagues. The tree will blossom every year around the time of the anniversary, reminding us of the discovery, whilst also providing food for the bees and other pollinators at Creswell Crags.