Pebbles at Pebbles

The Pebbles Project brought together local natural history specialist Mel Wrigley and artist Ben Hunt in a combined project based on the unique natural history of the chalk and seashore pebbles at Dover. Children from local schools looked really closely at chalk and pebbles to understand some of the natural processes which formed them millions of years ago and lead to them ending up on our beach. With Mel and Ben’s help they drew animations of the forms and patterns and even the tiny microscopic movements that can be found in the chalk and rocks. History also found its way into the project in an animation of the headless drummer boy that is said to haunt Dover Castle. The animations were displayed using modern versions of the 200-year-old animation machines – the praxiniscope and zoetrope – in Dover Museum.

You can see the praxiniscope and draw your own animations by collecting a pamphlet from the Pebbles Kiosk on the sea front – and you can take a look at some of the work done by the children by scanning the QR codes in the pamphlet.

The project was funded by the Town Council and the Mayor, Councillor Sue Jones attended an exhibition event at the Pebbles Kiosk on Friday 13th July to congratulate all the participants.

Sue sanoi

It was so lovely to be out and enjoying the stunning summer evening – I would like to see many more events like this on our wonderful sea-front.

Our picture shows some of those at the exhibition event at Pebbles Kiosk