4
AN IPSWICHIAN INTERGLACIAL SITE AT WRABNESS, ESSEX
Introduction
Large fossilised mammal bones have been collected from Wrabness, Essex for nearly 300
years. The majority of these bones were collected in 1701 and 1906/1907. This short
note reviews some of the published accounts and details some recent finds which confirm
the source of much of this material.
History of Collecting
On 15th September 1701 Mr John Luffkin wrote a letter detailing the discovery that
summer at Wrabness, Essex of "diverse bones of an extraordinary bigness, which were
found at fifteen or sixteen foot [4.6-4.9m] beneath the surface of the earth, in digging for
gravel to mend the road with" (Luffkin 1701 p.924). Some of the bones were obtained by
the Rector of Wrabness Robert Rich and sent to Luffkin who identified them as elelphant
having been buried there by the Romans. The Reverend Rich also sent two pieces of
bone to Samuel Dale who thought them to be some whale "from the thickness, shortness
and largeness of them" (Dale 1730 p.296).
In 1885 the site was briefly recorded during the Geological Survey by William Whitaker
(Whitaker 1885 p.95) in the chapter on Post Glacial Beds:- "On the southern side of that
river [Stour], just below Wrabness sluice, there is a low cliff, in bedded sand (mostly
fine), and loam, with a little gravel in parts, and with broken shells at one spot". On 20th
April 1907 at an indoor meeting of the Essex Field Club Mr Miller Christy exhibited
some fragmentary bones obtained at Wrabness by himself and Mr Wilmer which Mr E.T.
Newton identified as being of mammoth (Cole 1907 pp.46-47). The discovery of these
remains was detailed by Christy (1907 pp. 102-103) who stated the bones were found in
the spring of 1907 "on the eastern side of Wrabness sluice and of the road which comes
down from Low Farm to the shore close to the sluice". At this place the cliff was fifteen
or twenty feet high [4.6-6.1m] and consisted of sand and fine gravel which rested on a
veiy stiff clay which was stated to be probably redeposited London Clay. The bones had
been disturbed by a previous visitor and included extremely soft and friable though
perfect limb bones imbedded in the surface of the stiff tenacious clay and had been
freshly uncovered by a recent high tide. Apparently a Mr Walter Nichols of Stour Lodge,
Bradfield reported the bones had been discovered in May 1906 following a high tide
which led to a cliff fall. A couple of teeth were collected by a "youth named Young"
before the remains were again temporarily buried by a further cliff fall. These teeth were
acquired by a Mr R. Brooks and donated to the Essex Field Club where they were
subsequently identified as those of a straight tusked elephant. In the summer of 1907 a
party including Mr Miller Christy; Dr Philip Laver; Mr E. MacArthur Moir; Mr H.
Wilmer and Mr A.G. Wright attempted to examine the site more thoroughly and found
bones in abundance at the base of the cliff, overlain by a dozen to fifteen feet [3.65-4.6m]
of small gravel and sand, and washed out onto the adjacent beach but the only significant
find was a well preserved mammoth tooth. Miller Christy concluded that from the large
number of bones "more than one mammoth must have bogged, or have perished
otherwise at or near the spot in question". On 26th October 1907 during a meeting of the
Essex Field Club at Stratford near London Mr Miller Christy exhibited on behalf of Mr
W.B. Nichols of Stour Lodge Bradfield a few mammoth bones from Wrabness (Cole
1908 p. 148). A month later on 30th November 1907 two "straight-tusked elephant teeth
from Wrabness belonging to Mr R. Brooks of Mistley were exhibited at an Essex Field
Club meeting at Stratford" (Cole 1908 p.151).
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 21, May 1997