page_title: Burton Constable Hall
section_title: Whale skeleton
hierarchical_section_title: Burton Constable Hall / Grounds and park / Whale skeleton
caption_attribution_description: English: Whale bones on show at Burton Constable Hall, Burton Constable, East Riding of Yorkshire, England.Burton Constable Hall is in the East Riding of Yorkshire. A trust operates the site and it is worth a visit, especially for the architecture.
context_page_description: Burton Constable Hall is a large Elizabethan country house with 18th- and 19th-century interiors, and a fine 18th-century cabinet of curiosities. The hall, a Grade I listed building, is set in a park designed by Capability Brown with an area of 300 acres. It is located 3 miles south-east of the village Skirlaugh, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, approximately 9 miles north-east of the city of Hull, and has been the home of the Constable family for over 400 years.
  The hall and park are owned by the Burton Constable Foundation, a registered charity.
context_section_description: An unusual feature in the park during the 19th century was the skeleton of a 59-foot-long (18 m) sperm whale erected on ironwork. The bull whale had been stranded in 1825 on the shore at nearby Tunstall and was carefully dissected and studied by James Alderson, a celebrated Hull surgeon. The whale skeleton was brought to Burton Constable, since as Lord Paramount of the Seigniory of Holderness, Sir Clifford was entitled to anything of interest that washed up on the foreshore. This famous whale also came to the attention of Herman Melville, who published his masterpiece Moby-Dick in 1851: "at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale ... Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his long cavities—spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan—and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead."
  The whale skeleton can still be seen at Burton Constable Hall, in the Great Barn.
caption: Sperm whale skeleton
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D50", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2005:01:01 00:01:57", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "30444", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8733", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:01:01 00:01:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:01:01 00:01:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "39/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF SubSecTime": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "30306", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}