What 150-year-old Mystery Reared Its Head Again in Devon
The whale's tale: the puzzle of Cotehele'due south behemothic jawbones
For nearly 150 years, a whale's jawbones have flanked the doorway in the great hall at Cotehele in Cornwall. For much of this time the bones have been shrouded in mystery, what type of whale was it? Where did they come up from?
House & Collections Manager Rachel Hunt reveals how cutting edge Deoxyribonucleic acid analysis and a chance discovery during a fleck of housekeeping changed all of that.
Leviathan treasure
Cotehele, habitation of the Edgcumbe family for nearly 600 years, is an important Tudor Firm perched high to a higher place the River Tamar. It houses an impressive collection of tapestries, artillery and armour and fine oak furniture.
Amidst these treasures, nevertheless, the object that generates the most involvement from visitors is a pair of whale's jawbones. They stand over two and half metres high and flank the centre doorway of the great hall.
Many questions and few answers
We know, from the absence of tooth-sockets, that the whale was a filter feeder, or baleen whale. Baleen refers to the stiff, yet flexible material that hangs from the upper jaws of the whale and through which it sieves small organisms from the sea for nourishment.
Too known as 'whalebone', baleen was prized equally a raw material from artifact onwards. Dispersed throughout our collections are many examples of objects that contain carved, reshaped and modified baleen for aesthetic or utilitarian purposes, including parasol spokes, crinoline petticoats and corset stays.
Although baleen was commonly used in the production of objects, intact jawbones are unusual and this is the only example in our collections. Given their uniqueness, at that place must have been a clue somewhere that would assist united states discover the origin of these cetacean mandibles.
In 1647 the Edgcumbe family exchanged letters with the Admiralty concerning a whale that had been done up at Mevagissey. Later, in the early 19th century, a number of observers recounted seeing 'elephant'south tusks' in the hall. Were these then-called tusks actually the jawbones in question?
Scientific testing
Evidence to support any of these theories was, until recently, frustratingly elusive. During a visit to Cotehele in May of 2016, David Bullock, our Caput of Nature Conservation, suggested that nosotros collect DNA samples from the bones to submit for assay. DNA testing afterwards revealed that the jawbones belonged to a fin or common rorqual whale (Balaenoptera physalus). These marine giants tin grow to be over 80 feet long—almost twice the length of the hall itself.
A chance discovery
Questions concerning the age of the bones, and the engagement they came to the hall, remained unresolved until a chance discovery while sorting through a big batch of archival paperwork inherited from a recently retired colleague. This turned out to exist a fractional inventory and clarification of Cotehele, probably written by William fourth Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in 1887.
One of the pages contained a photograph of the bones in situ in the hall. Below the photograph a handwritten caption reads: 'The jawbones on each side of the eye door are those of a whale (about 61 feet long) landed on Colona Beach, near Bodrugan, Jan 2nd 1875'.
In the news
This discovery prompted united states of america to search for contemporary prove of the whale'due south landing. We came across numerous mentions in local newspapers. In 1875, the Luton Times and Advertiser reported 'A huge whale has been thrown up ashore at Mevagissey in Cornwall. The length is about sixty feet, and girth in proportion…The tail is considerably damaged, otherwise the monster is in fantabulous condition. The whale will probably be made into a skeleton, under the superintendence of London naturalists, merely it is possible that it volition be cut into $.25 and brought to London on trucks by the Dandy Western Railway.'
Decades afterward, in 1945, a reader wrote to the Western Morning time News recalling being 'ane of the thousands who visited the whale on Colona embankment 72 years ago... Its entrails were protruding from its mouth and didn't information technology olfactory property! It was sold to a fish merchant for £60; the whale-bone was salvaged and the blubber rendered into oil and resold, no doubt at a profit'.
Thanks to these news reports, we tin can now say with groovy certainty that the huge whale done upon Colona beach in 1875 was the original owner of Cotehele's jawbones. While this aspect of the mystery is solved, the exact details of how the jawbones were acquired for Cotehele are all the same a matter for speculation.
This text is adapted from an article originally published in the ABC Bulletin, Winter 2016-17.
Source: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/the-whales-tale-the-puzzle-of-coteheles-giant-jawbones
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