An iconic whale skeleton, suspended above the entrance of Cambridge University’s Museum of Zoology for the past 26 years, is being dismantled and put into storage as part of the museum’s £3.67m refurbishment programme.

Nigel Larkin, a specialist conservator with vast experience in dismantling large zoological artefacts, began to take the Cambridge landmark apart with his team earlier this week. The 70ft finback whale (Balaeonoptera physalus) is thought to have weighed approximately 80 tonnes when alive.

The whale has been owned by the Museum of Zoology since 1866, purchased by the University of Cambridge after it washed up dead at Pevensey Bay in Sussez in 1865. It was sold at auction for £38 to 10 fisherman, who cut it up under the watch of William Flower, conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Mr. Flower wrote to the Cambridge museum, keen to have the bones of this “magnificent skeleton” properly preserved. 

Initially, the bones were suspended over skeletons of African and Indian elephants in the old Museum of Zoology, until the building was demolished in 1965. Years later, the skeleton was taken out of storage and re-displayed at the entrance of the museum - for this relocation alone, it took 19 men to carry the skull.

The skeleton’s dismantlement is part of a wider three-year refurbishment project. It will be back on display in June 2016, when the museum on Downing Street is scheduled to reopen. The refurbishment project hopes to create new learning spaces and put more items on display, whilst making the museum more accessible for all types of visitors. The Museum of Zoology receives around 70,000 visitors each year and although currently closed to the public, it will continue to run its Zoology Clubs and an active outreach programme.