One Hull Of A Story: Elephants In The City

In the small port city of Kingston upon Hull, in East Yorkshire, England there once existed a number of botanical and zoological gardens. In 1840 during the period when Hull Fair (Europe's largest travelling fair) came to town in the October, the Hull Zoological Gardens was opened. The gardens only a short walk from the city centre boasted 7 acres of ornamental gardens, featuring two lakes, a concert hall, a camera obscura, a detailed "tyoprama" of the city of Naples, and a 15 foot long model of the Crystal Palace in London. But, being a "zoological gardens", or course it boasted a zoo. The zoo was said to be well stocked with a vast array of exotic animals, particularly for England of the period, such as polar bears, wolves, lions, tigers, kangaroos, monkeys, pelicans and elephants. It is claimed to have had the "finest Bengal tiger in captivity". But it's the elephants that the story here is about.

The entrance fee to the gardens was one shilling, and it held regular fetes, galas and firework displays. However, for the poorest of the city who couldn't afford the shilling, they didn't have to miss out. They could still see the sight of the elephants being paraded every day down Spring Bank, the zoological gardens were situated on. Now stories vary, and with such stories facts are sometimes best left ambiguous. Now some stories claim that the elephants were lead from their home in the elephant house of the gardens, down to the River Hull about a mile away, to be washed. Others claim, that they were moved each day from their stables on Spring Bank to their enclosure in the gardens. Personally I prefer the former rather than the latter story, even though knowing the geography of the River Hull with its inaccessibility to the river's edge by foot and high mud banks on either side, it's highly unlikely that they paraded the elephants to be washed there every day. Plus there is now a commemorative stone laid in the ground at the corner of Spring Bank and Beverley Road, where the elephants were supposed to be stabled.

Anyway, the story goes that each day the elephants were walked from their home in the city centre, to the zoological gardens. A bizarre sight to behold for anyone, never mind the inhabitance of a northern England industrial port town. Along there route was a bakers, a gingerbread shop. And as legend has it, that one of the female elephants took a liking the early morning smells of freshly baked gingerbread wafting from the open doorway of the shop. She broke ranks and headed in the direction of the shop, squeezing her massive bulk into the shops entrance way, she stole some of the delicious baked goods on offer.

The the early 2000s, a local artist and residents of the area where the zoological gardens where once located (which closed due to financial concerns in 1862), commemorated this quirky piece of Hull's history by designing the "elephant trail". The trail runs from the corner of Spring Bank to Albany Street, on Spring Bank, and consists of a series of paving stones featuring elephants embedded in the pavement designed by local school children. On Albany Street itself is a series of sculptures related to the gardens, including one of Bucheet the hippopotamus, which marks one of the original entrances to the zoo.

A paving stone on Spring Bank, commemorating the "Ginger Shop" incident.

A Bit About That Fountain That Used To Be In Front Of Fletchers

Now it must be said that most of the story of this is gleaned from the awesome local history website www.paul-gibson.com. Anyway that infamous penny fountain, that many of a certain pre-Starbucks age will remember has an interesting history. In the Zoological Gardens, down the central walkway was the Mermaid Fountain. Or as it was referred to at the time as a "nereid", which is a mythological sea-nymph of Greek origin. It is believed that the fountain was the very first example of public art in Hull, and the photo here from 1854 is thought to be the only one in existence of it in its original location. After the closure of the Zoological Gardens in 1862, the fountain was relocated to the newly established Pearson Park, which opened in August 1861. And there it remained until the 1950s, when for some inexplicable reason it was removed from the park, and the part of it was used to create the Fletchers corner penny fountain.

Hull Daily Mail (1978)

Even in 1978 elephants were still pounding the streets of Hull, when the circus came to town. The Robert Brothers Circus would walk its elephants from Paragon Station, all the way to the circus in East Park. Also in the advert, note the request for "casual staff to help erect [the] big top".

The old citadel tower, in East Park Rocks, circa 1970s.

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