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Kimmeridge () is a small village and civil parish on the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula on the English Channel coast in Dorset, England. It is situated about south of Wareham and west of Swanage, in the Purbeck administrative district. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 90. Kimmeridge is a coastal parish and its coastline forms part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. The coast is also part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the whole parish is part of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Kimmeridge is the type locality for Kimmeridge clay, the geological formation that covers most of the parish. Within the clay are bands of bituminous shale, which in the history of the village have been the focus of several attempts to create an industrial centre. An oil well has operated on the shore of Kimmeridge Bay since 1959. The roughly semi-circular Kimmeridge Bay is southwest of Kimmeridge village. It is backed by low cliffs of Kimmeridge clay, and beneath the cliffs is a large wave-cut platform and a rocky shore with rock pools and attendant ecology. Kimmeridge Bay is a surfer and diver area. ==History== In the Iron Age and during the Roman occupation, ornaments and other objects were made from the black bituminous shale—known as blackstone or 'Kimmeridge coal'—that occurs in layers within the Kimmeridge clay that covers most of Kimmeridge parish. Armlets were manufactured from the shale using a lathe, which produced waste in the form of hard black discs; these have been discovered at several sites, and were thought by 18th-century antiquaries to be coins and therefore called 'coal money'. The Romans also used the shale as fuel for boiling sea water to produce salt.〔 In the medieval period there were three settlements within the parish: Kimmeridge, Little Kimmeridge and Smedmore. These each had their own rectangular strip of land stretching between the coast and Smedmore Hill. Only Kimmeridge survives as a settlement of any size.〔 In the mid 16th century Lord Mountjoy attempted to make alum here and acquired a patent to do so, though the enterprise was unsuccessful. In the first half of the 17th century Sir William Clavell made several unsuccessful efforts to turn Kimmeridge into an industrial venture. He tried boiling seawater to make salt, using the shale as fuel like the Romans had done. He then followed in Mountjoy's footsteps and founded an alum works, though he failed to secure a patent and ran foul of alum merchants in London who had sole rights (granted by Charles I) to produce alum in England; the merchants took Clavell's property and demanded £1000 per year, then destroyed the works and stole Clavell's cattle. Clavell took legal action but was unsuccessful. He then tried to turn Kimmeridge into a port, and finally tried to manufacture glass, but both these failed; the pier which he built for the port became ruinous and was destroyed by a storm in 1745. Clavell had Smedmore House built less than a mile south-east of Kimmeridge village; referring to it as his "little newe House", he moved into it on its completion in 1632. Previously Clavell lived at Barnston Manor, near the neighbouring village of Church Knowle.〔 In the mid 19th century the shale was used a source of oil, and in 1847 an Act of Parliament enabled causeways, inclined planes and tramways to be built so the shale could be transported to Weymouth for processing into various petroleum-based products, including varnish, pitch, naptha and dyes. Gas was also extracted from the shale, though like the oil it burned with a strong sulphurous smell, which limited its suitability as a domestic fuel and prevented fulfilment of a contract to supply gas to Paris for lighting.〔 The Royal National Lifeboat Institution stationed a lifeboat at Kimmeridge in 1868 but it was removed in 1896. In 1959 an oil well was installed above the cliffs west of Gaulter Gap, overlooking Kimmeridge Bay. Comprising a nodding donkey pump that lifts crude oil from several hundred feet below the surface, in its early years it pumped more than 100,000 gallons per week, resulting in a total of 200,000 tonnes between 1961 and 1974.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kimmeridge」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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