Warning: Giant Irish Elk on the move!
The conservation team at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Science are mid-way though a task of truly giant proportions – moving the giant deer skeleton from its place at the end of the Museum to its new home atop a table case in nearby bay 4. This major effort will free up space for the forthcoming Darwin the Geologist exhibition which will eventually occupy the area to the far left of the Museum’s entrance.

For over a century, the so-called ‘Irish Elk’ has presided over the gallery space of the
Darwin project conservator, Esther Sharp is pleased that thus far the move has been less difficult than expected. “In general terms the biggest problem was getting the head from its high plinth, down to people on the ground. Because of the massive antlers (spanning nearly three meters) the skull has a really weird centre of gravity and you can only hold it at certain places without the danger of it breaking.”

Luckily, the enormous endeavour has been supported by a keen crew of staff, hoping to find out more about Adam Sedgwick’s collection. They’ve been rewarded for their efforts with new insights into the construction of the skeleton’s antique supports.
Esther elaborates, “We wanted to take the pelvis and tail off the metal mount but generations of previous curators had contributed additional material to this region including, tar, wood and copper wire. In fact, after taking it down we found out that a lot of the mount wasn’t actually original.”

Some additions to the skeleton have already been well documented and they reveal something of its chequered history – in October 23rd 1835 Adam Sedgwick wrote about his newly purchased beast, complaining about some missing vertebrae:
“The very sight of my stump-tailed beast has given me a sympathetic sciatica- a horrible tic in the regions of the rump which rings groans from me enough to melt the heart of a flint!”
Clark and Hughes, Life and Letters of Sedgwick (1890), i, p. 450.
Despite Sedgwick’s Victorian melodramatics, the Irish Elk (complete with wooden tail) is now in good hands. As this article is being posted the deer’s new base is under construction at the Department of Earth Sciences workshop. In its new position, the giant deer will come to rest opposite the Barrington Hippo, raised a meter above the ground on top of a table cabinet. The new location will give visitors an opportunity to see an iconic part of the Museum collection from a different perspective.



