A COMIC artist is set to pass through South Lakeland while retracing the steps of an elephant that embarked upon an epic journey from Edinburgh to Manchester almost 150 years ago.

Oliver East will retrace the 200-mile walk tramped by the Asian elephant called Maharajah and his keeper back in 1872.

The elephant was part of 'Wombwell's Royal Number One' famous travelling menagerie. When it closed all the animals were sold by auction in Edinburgh including Maharajah. It was bought by the owners of Manchester’s Belle Vue Zoological Gardens.

Although the plan was to send him by train, the animal wrecked his railway carriage and the keeper suggested they walk to Manchester.

Yesterday, Mr East set out to trace the route the elephant and keeper followed and plans to complete the walk over 10 days.

It will lead him directly through Kendal on Monday (April 13) where he will stop over - just like the elephant and his keeper Lorenzo Lawrence did more than a century ago.

"There is a lot written about Belle Vue Zoo itself, and Maharaja's life there, but little to nothing on the actual walk Lorenzo undertook, which makes it ripe to mine for linear narrative," said Mr East. "The burgeoning relationship between animal trainer and animal, while undergoing such an epic trek is interesting to explore in itself, aside from the task of getting to Manchester.’’

From the Take Me Back to Manchester walk, Oliver will create a comic book which will be showcased at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival at Kendal in October.

"While aspects of the book will have to fall to fiction, I feel doing the walk myself will give the finished project so much more substance than spending that same time poring over old newspaper cuttings in libraries," said Mr East, who lives in Manchester. "The landscape drawings gathered on route, the empathy of exhaustion, the thrill I’ll have having completed the walk, these will make it a much better project."

And during the Cumbrian leg of the journey a special documentary film, commissioned by the Lakes Culture ‘Lakes Ignite’ programme, will be captured to be shown at Brockhole between May 8 and 17.

The skeleton of Maharajah is now one of the prize exhibits at the Manchester Museum. The tale of the walk has entered zoological and Manchester folklore.