In the 1850s, workers from Wortley, near Armley Gyratory, discovered strange bones while digging clay for the local brickworks. The bones were so large and rare that some of them were sent for consideration to Henry Denny, then curator of a small museum run by the Leeds Philosophical Society in Park Row. It was brought in.
Denny confirmed that the bones belonged to a hippopotamus and visited the site to see what else he could find. Arriving at the site in 1851, he soon discovered many other bones, eventually discovering the bones of four hippos, a woolly mammoth and a giant cow known as an aurochs.
Workers were encouraged to dig more carefully and look for more bones. A year later, in 1852, the skeletons of two more hippos were discovered at the same location.
The discovery captured the public's imagination, and the story of the discovery was featured in both local and national newspapers.
“For generations, it was the city's most famous prehistoric feature.”
Previous discoveries from this period have been made in Yorkshire, including the remains of an elephant from outside Market Weighton and a hyena from Kirkdale Cave, but the discovery at Armley highlights the amount of bone found in each specimen and the excellent preservation of the remains. Depending on the level, it was very important.
Denny identified the hippo as Hippo amphibius, a subspecies also known as the Great Northern hippo. He also submitted a paper to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1953 explaining that the endangered species had lived in the area more than 100,000 years ago.
Armley's bones remain the northernmost specimen of its kind found in Britain.
What was the hippo doing in Leeds?
There was much debate about the age of the bones, their age, and how they arrived at the site. Denny initially thought they might date back to Roman times.
He later revised his assumptions to earlier ones. This was recently supported by the finding that the bones date from a warm interglacial period between 130,000 and 117,000 years ago.
These periods of warm weather occurred during the Pleistocene, when hot climates caused ice sheets to retreat and melt, making the climate warmer. The last interglacial period is known in Europe as the 'Eemian Age' or 'Ipswich Age' and corresponds to approximately 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, the same period as the hippopotamus bones.
During this period, the ice retreated and temperate forests existed where Yorkshire is now. For over 15,000 years, large animals migrated north. These megafauna include moose, narrow-nosed rhinos, bears, wolves, cave lions, straight-tusked elephants, and northern hippos.
Phil Murphy, from the School of Global Environment at the University of Leeds, explained: The Earth has experienced about 24 periods of cooling and warming over the past 2.5 million years. Will it happen again? almost certainly, and Hippos will return if Leeds gets warm enough in the future. ”
It's hard to believe that just 100,000 years ago, wild animals you'd expect to find further south in places like Africa were roaming around Leeds.
In 1924, Professor Percy Fry Kendall described the Yorkshire Ice Age as “a time when the hills and valleys of Yorkshire were inhabited by ferocious beasts, when hippos lurked in the marshes of the Rivers Aire, Ouse and Ribble. ” he said.
Bringing Armley Hippo to life…
The bones were initially displayed on a table at the Leeds Philosophical Society, but were eventually moved to the new Leeds Museum at the Leeds Institute.
In 2008, 25 of the main bones were installed by a taxidermist named James Dickinson. The Armley Hippo skeleton has since been proudly displayed at Leeds Museum.
A modern hippo skull donated by Salford Museum now sits next to a much older Armley hippo.
A pavement plaque has now been erected in Armley to commemorate the discovery, but although the date is 1852, many believe that the first bones should have been discovered in 1851. I believe.
So, the next time you go to Leeds, whether you're watching the famous Leeds United, visiting the Henry Moore Sculpture Gallery or shopping at Harvey Nichols, you'll be inspired by the 130,000 years ago you'll come across. Remember, they were not humans, but hippos, lions, and rhinos. Perhaps this is why the rugby league team's name is Leeds Rhinos.
