The Ice Age and The Ilford Mammoth: 200,000 Years Ago

The area around Ilford Lane is one of the most important Ice Age sites in Britain.

Hundreds of Ice Age animal bones have been found here and around Ilford town centre. Ilford was once home to mammoths, elephants, rhinoceroses, bears, and even lions.

The animals lived here until 200,000 years ago during the Ice Age, which lasted from 5 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago.

The Ilford Mammoth

Ilford Lane is the site of one of the best examples of a mammoth skull ever found in Britain.

The mammoth was discovered in 1864 by workmen digging for clay to make bricks. This was in the Uphall brick pit, close to what is now the site of Uphall Primary School.

The area around Ilford Lane is one of the most important Ice Age sites in Britain. Hundreds of Ice Age animal bones have been found here and around Ilford town centre.

The animals lived here around 200,000 years ago during the Ice Age. This lasted from 5 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago. The Ilford mammoth skull is now in the Natural History Museum.

Redbridge Museum has a life-size reproduction cast of the mammoth skull.

To find out more about Ice Age Ilford and meet the mammoth, visit Redbridge Museum, Central Library, Ilford www.visionrcl.org.uk/museum

The Ilford mammoth

Natural History Museum

Why Ilford Lane?

Just off Ilford Lane was the Uphall brick pit, named after Uphall Farm. During the early 1840s, workmen were digging clay to make bricks for railway bridges and houses. They uncovered hundreds of Ice Age animal bones which had been preserved in the clay. These bones were bought by collectors who sold them to museums. By about the 1890s the Uphall brick pit was closed and no more bones were being dug up.

Map of Uphall brick pit, about 1881