The Thames Whale (circa 1640)

[Story]

I beg ten thousand pardons if this has been previously posted, although my search revealed nothing. It seems that this would have been the talk of London Town and elsewhere for quite awhile, considering how much buzz the recent Thames Whale caused.

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/misc/pr...hp?artid=690300

Remains of 17th century Thames whale discovered

ONCE a famous landmark in the borough, the Redbridge whale had been lost in mists of time - until now.

Moved from its prime position in Chadwell 130 years ago, the old sea creature's bones have been traced by the Guardian it to its new home in Dagenham.

After the London whale made its appearance in the Thames last month, the Guardian carried a report from an official Redbridge Council guidebook about a giant pair of whalebones that stood for hundreds of years on top of a toll booth in Chadwell, a sight from which the nearby Whalebone Lane took its name.

According to the book, the bones came from a whale that was stranded in the Thames during the 17th century, but they disappeared in 1870, to an unknown resting place.

After we printed the story we were contacted by reader John Leicester of Redbridge Lane West who told us that the whalebones had been moved to his childhood home of Whalebone House in the High Road where they stood until the house was flattened by a bomb during the Second World War.

He said: "The whalebones were about ten to 12ft high and there was one each side of the wrought-iron gates. During the war the place was hit by an aerial mine, damn great thing came down on a parachute and demolished the whole house.

"Fortunately my grandmother who lived there, and had the house as a family home from the early 1920's, went to Oxfordshire during the war so it was empty when it was bombed.

"One of the whalebones was recovered and it is now in the Valence House Museum in Dagenham."

The Guardian contacted the museum and spoke to curator Mark Watson. He said: "The man in charge of clearing the site found the workmen dragging these things that looked like branches over to a huge bonfire, but he stopped them and contacted the then head of the museum.

"The two came out under cover of darkness, because there was petrol rationing and they were using a van for illicit purposes, and took the bones to Valence House where they were hidden in the cellar until the 1950s."

The bones were then brought out from their hiding place to take pride of place on either side of the museum's front door.

Years of exposure had taken their toll, however, and in 1994 the bones were moved back to the cellar where they lie to this day.

Mr Watson said: "They were a major part of Chadwell Heath history. In 1641 somebody put up one bone in the Chadwell Heath High Road at the intersection of Whalebone Lane North and South. After a while another whalebone turned up and it's likely that at least one of the bones is the original from the 1640s."

Daniel Defoe in his 1724 book Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, says that the whale from which the bone was taken was washed up in the Thames during a ferocious storm on the night before Oliver Cromwell died in 1658.

An alternative version in a 1735 book by one MJ Farmer called History of Waltham Abbey dates the bones even further back to the reign of Charles I, but whatever their origin, their presence lives on today not only in the name of Whalebone Lane but also in Whalebone Grove and Avenue, and Whalebone Library in the High Road.

Mr Watson said: "The bones were a landmark and people used to stop and rest there, and the parish registers are full of things like tramp found dead at the whale bones'."

The bones also played their part in a little recorded aspect of Redbridge's history, giving rise the phrase going up the whalebones'.

Mr Watson said: "North of Whalebone Lane where the Rose Lane estate now stands used to be the big prostitution area for east London. It used to be popular from about the 1920s to the 1950s with lorry drivers using Eastern Avenue."

Although they have not been seen by the public for more than ten years, the museum plans to restore the bones to permanent display if its application for a lottery heritage fund grant is successful.

It seems that the whale may yet surface again.

6:18am Monday 20th February 2006