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email: contact@hhgs.org.uk
No specialist knowledge needed
Discover the World under your Feet!
New members are always welcome!
click here for anniversary highlights

The Society was formed in 1973 by a number of enthusiasts who had met at local evening classes.

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HHGS Committee Members
President - Dr David Brook, OBE
Chairman - Guy Fiegehen
Hon Secretary - Jean Sippy
Asst Secretary - Jackie Gill
Treasurer - Hilary Place
Field Trips - Allan Wheeler
Exhibitions - Joan Waters
Membership - John Howard
Field Assistant - Paul Szadorski
Community Engagement - Liz Chiu
Honorary - Peter and Daphne Moore
HHGS President: Dave Brook
Chartered Geologist, Fellow of the Geological Society, Fellow of the Institute of Quarrying
Dr David Brook OBE

First President: Bob Symes
Bob Symes, OBE, known for his work as keeper of the Minerals Collection at the Natural History Museum and for the many books he wrote on Mineralogy.
Bob was born in Harrow and grew up in Eastcote; he played a key role in setting up the Harrow and Ruislip Geological Society, which later changed its name to Harrow & Hillingdon.
Robert Frederick Symes 1939-2016


Areas of Involvement

HHGS Rock Show Geoconservation and LGP Local Geology Geologists Association

Members' pages
Jackie Gill (Fossils) Robert Maurer (Tectonics) Allan Wheeler, Field Secretary Colleen (World Geosites) Peter Austin (Marsh Award) Emily Hopper (Seismologist) Archive
Golden Anniversary Highlights - 2023 is an exciting year for us!

~ Earth Discovery Sessions ~ [find out more]
We have started a brand new collaboration with Brunel University's Experimental Techniques Centre. The aim is to build community interest in Geology, combining HHGS's exhibitions expertise with Brunel's cutting edge research facility.

~ Stanmore Gravel Project ~ [find out more]
Guided by Prof. David Bridgland (Durham University), Dr Phil Collins (Brunel Universary) and Dr Peter Allen, we have set up a Citizen Science Research Project to invetigate our local Stanmore Gravel. The aim is to update knowledge of the gravel at the Harrow Weald geological SSSI.

~ Geopark Lecture Series ~ [find out more]
This year we have invited speakers from the UK's UNESCO Global Geoparks to tell us about the amazing geology this country has to offer. HHGS has already visited some of these fabulous areas and will surely be visiting more in the future.

~ Field Trip Re-enactment ~ See videos of our trip to the Mendips [ below ]

~ Golden Badge Fieldwear ~ HHGS members are looking super-smart at all of our exhibitions, field trips and events, sporting the new shirts and hats.

~ Members' Anniversary Dinner ~ Saturday 13th May 2023 at Mamma Rosa, Ruislip
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Help us celebrate!
Be inspired by HHGS and see your creative work displayed here on our website!

Art through Geology at Brunel University
" Beginning with H "
Send a photo of your geologically inspired artworks:
e.g. painting / drawing / pebble art / stonework / clay pottery

Harefield HARE Brick Hippo H&H in pebbles Chalk Hat
HEART pebbles HORSE in London Clay Hawk's Head in chalk Clay Hedgehogs
Geo-Fun!
During the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 an earthquake crack passed directly in front of three cottages and moved the rose-garden from the middle cottage to the furthest one and the raspberry patch from the near cottage exactly opposite the middle one. History does not relate how the law decided who owned the roses and the raspberries after their rearrangement.
M.E.David, Professor David 111 (1937)
True the billiard tables were of the old Silurian period and the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshment in this, not discomfort; for there are rest and healing in the contemplation of antiquities.
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi 215 (1883)
face pebble Punch Cartoon
"AnniVERSary Verse"
Take your inspiration from anything on our website and write a little poem.

Now what has Science not surmounted
Though Strata vary when they’re counted
Defective some – some matter change
Yet these recur and those re-arrange
Some thicken much while others thin
And sometimes chance beds may come in
Some get too hard and others soft
In many colours change and oft
Or course or fine-grained or round
So various in their matter found
That samples which we often see
From rocks the same will rare agree
When tried by tests of chemistry
From different beds in each thick rock
Of many kinds and what a stock
Were we to set about Geology
By meagre-meaning Mineralogy
But Fossils plainly teach the art
Of knowing each discordant part.


William Smith 1825 (unpublished MS)


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Earth is our heritage,
Land, sea and sky
Continents keep changing
And I want to know why

Liz Chiu (for Bob)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Field Trip Re-enactment (Mendips)

One of the Society's earliest trips was to Weston-super-Mare and the Mendips, an area of special interest to our founding President, Bob Symes. We revisited in 2023!

Pretty Corner, Eastcote