I have a book. Actually, it's more like a booklet. It's not a very big booklet; about A5 size, 15 pages. It has an aqua-green cover with a colour drawing of two leadbeater's cockatoos, by Jim Hayward, on the front and on the back there is a photograph of a rather startled looking snowy owl. The booklet is titled 'Clee Hill Bird & Animal Garden' in big white letters. On the inside cover there is a crude map, which shows the collection located roughly South West of Birmingham and South of Church Stretton. Under the location map is the address: Hopton Bank, Nr. Cleobury Mortimer, Kidderminster, Worcs. The rest of the pages are made up of photographs/ drawings of various animals, along with a few paragraphs on animal facts, and the collection's animal list, which is as follows: Bar-headed goose. Common shelduck. Northern pintail. European wigeon. European goldeneye. European pochard. Mallard. Eurasian teal. Tufted duck. Red crested pochard. Mandarin duck. North American wood duck. Whooper swan. Coscoroba swan. Black- necked swan. Black swan. Mute swan. Whistling swan. Barnacle goose. Ashy headed goose. Red-breasted goose. Ross snow goose. Chinese goose. Scaup duck. Muscovy duck. Palm cockatoo. Roseate cockatoo. Leadbeater's cockatoo. Citron crested cockatoo. Greater sulphur crested cockatoo. Blue-eyed cockatoo. Red-vented cockatoo. Goffin's cockatoo. Little corella cockatoo. Cockatiel. Australian king parrot. Princess of Wales parrot. Crimson rosella. Adelaide rosella. Red-rumped parakeet. Red-fronted parakeet. Yellow-fronted parakeet. Peach-faced lovebirds. Alexandrine parakeet. Ring-necked parakeet (India). Ring-necked parakeet (blue mutation). Ring-necked parakeet (lutino mutation). Hyacinth macaw. Blue and gold macaw. Military macaw. Buffon's macaw. Scarlet macaw. Green-winged macaw. Illiger's macaw. Yellow-collard macaw. Jandaya conure. Sun conure. Thick-billed parrot. Monk parakeet. Double yellow-headed Amazon parrot. Snowy owl. European raven. Demoiselle crane. Crowned crane. Sarus crane. European crane. White-cheeked turaco. Purple glossy starling. Long-tailed glossy starling. Kiskadee. Chilean flamingo. African guinea fowl. North American wild turkey. Indian peafowl. Poultry (various old breeds). Japanese sika deer. European fallow deer. European red deer. Guanaco. Llama. Alpaca. Bennett's wallaby. St. Kilda sheep. Jacob's sheep. Pygmy goat. North American porcupine. I feel like I've had this booklet forever. I reckon it must have been given to me by my Grandparents at some point. I know I've never visited Clee Hill Bird & Animal Garden myself, so, due to the rather impressive list of animals above and the fact the address isn't that far away, I tried to find out more information. I searched online for it, but there wasn't a trace. I searched on Google maps, but it was nowhere to be seen. I then searched on ZooChat, to find it's name merely listed in only one thread called 'Visits to zoos that don't exist anymore', which only confirmed that it has closed. So that is the purpose of this thread... what do you know about Clee Hill Bird & Animal Garden? Did you ever visit? What are your memories of it? Was it a good place? What year did it open? What year did it close? Why did it close? I think it's important to have a record of obscure places like Clee Hill somewhere on the internet before any knowledge or memory of them eventually becomes lost.
It was my post which the above link takes you to; but I am afraid I can't help much. I visited once to look around when it was up for sale, but I dont remember much more. I drove to it, so this must have been after 1975. I think it was probably one of the numerous 'bird-farms' of that era, dealers premises selling imported birds to the pet and private keeper market. This was a big deal at the time. A few realised there was more money to be made by charging people to look at the birds rather than selling them, so simply replaced the price tags with cage labels and put up a pay kiosk. I think Clee Hill must have been one of those - but please excuse my geography, it was a long time ago! It was on a steep slope and you entered via the shop which would have previously sold bird accessories - in a similar way to Shepreth which used to be a commercial fish-farm with fish and aquatic sales. A better known similar bird-farm/dealer was Wingham Bird Farm, which I did visit when it was a selling premises. Most people on here will know it by its new name now!
Many thanks for the info Andrew, I hadn't heard of these 'bird-farms' before. It looks like Clee Hill were indeed trying to become more like a 'zoo' by adding various mammals to their bird collection in an effort to make themselves more attractive to the general public rather than just the local bird fanciers. It seems like they were giving it a good go too by publishing good quality booklets and they were managing to attract people like my Grandparents who did not keep birds and lived over on the other side of Birmingham. However, with the collection seemingly being located in the middle of nowhere and cut off from the large populations of people living in and around Birmingham by the much larger and attractive Dudley zoo and West Midlands safari park, in the end they didn't stand much chance. Going by the animal list above it must have been a sizable place at one point though. I wonder what is on the site now.
The import of birds was on a very large scale, in the same way that reptiles and fish are imported now. The hobby was huge. A few very large importers dominated it, with numerous dealers then selling the birds to the public. Issues of 'Cage and Aviary Birds' from the 70's (say) would give a good idea of the scale as the back pages were full of adverts. A few zoos, like Banham, were major importers, and of course Ravensden served the 'top end' of the zoo trade. The 'bird-farms' were a mixture of the well established and temporary opportunists. I don't think many attempted to go the zoo route, but we did have one locally called 'Pheonix Tropical Bird-land' at Cowbit north of Peterborough, which is probably less well know than CleeHill, which as you say did indeed 'give it a go' by widening its scope! The private bird collections of the same era, produced the bird 'zoo's of their day, Birdland, BirdWorld, Stagsden, Lilford, Norton, Midland, Weston Underwood, even the Wildfowl Trust etc Some like Bridgemere and Moncaster widened their collections too. The rest is history, as the sayingbgoes...!
Hi the man who owned the animal and bird park was a conservationist not a dealer. His name was Brian Higgs and had a son called Peter. my dad built the shop/house/cafe etc. Brian tried to support and rehome those listed. He opened the park to raise funds to continue this work.
Hi Ann. Thanks for your reply. Do you happen to have any more information on the history of Clee Hill Bird & Animal Garden?
I was only young when Brian started the park I think around 1974/5. He had a pet parrot called trouble that used to sit in the foyer. Brian sold up and went to live in Spain in the early 80s. What else would you like to know? Sadly my dad who could have given me more information is no longer with us. My dad built Brian another house behind the animal park and converted the pub at the top of the hill called the ladies finger into a house. I can try and rack my brain
Did it continue after Brian sold up? What is on the site now? I'd also like to know a more accurate location for it. I'm guessing it was somewhere on the A4117 between Ludlow and Cleobury Mortimer. Any information at all that you can share is a bonus, no matter how small, as this thread on Zoochat is probably the only collection of info about the place that there is.
There appears to be an area known as Hopton Bank just NW of Cleobury Mortimer on Common Lane which runs between the A4117 and Neen Savage. So really quite close to CM, and not particularly close to Clee Hill (which is further west). My suggestion would be find out the most widely-read weekly local newspaper in the area, send them a letter and see if anyone responds. It's worked for me a few times! (Having looked on Google Streetview it does appear to be a VERY rural location!)
I also have a copy of the guidebook that Benosaurus has, but never visited the place. The only bit of information I can offer is that Clee Hill opened in 1970.
Hi there only just dropped on your post by some circuitous route via FB. I live at the property now. If you're still interested in knowing more about the location etc lete know. I'd be really interested 8n knowing more about the booklet as I've been looking for information about the property's past for some time
Hi @Jules_Shropshire and welcome to ZooChat. Apologies for my delayed reply. Please don't reveal the exact location on this public forum given that it is where you live. I'm afraid there isn't much else to say about the booklet other than what I wrote in the first post of this thread. Inside the front cover it says there is a licensed restaurant and on the inside of the back cover it says the booklet was designed and printed by Beric Tempest & Co., St Ives, Cornwall, England. Sadly there is no year of publication. However, the colour drawing of two leadbeater's cockatoos, by Jim Hayward, on the front cover is dated as 1978, so the booklet would have to be at least the same age or younger than that. We've already learnt in this thread that Ann bocock's dad may have built your house. What I would like to ask is what remains on the site? Is there any evidence left of the old bird gardens? Do you know anything more about the history of Clee Hill Bird & Animal Garden? I wonder if any of the Higgs family are still around. It would be great to have them on here and tell us about their memories of the place.
Hello. Me. This was my family - one branch of. It was my uncle Brian who founded it. Yes. It was. Once upon a time it really was lovely.
Hello Jules, I’ve no longer got any booklets. It would be marvellous if I could see some pictures of one one here. I spent a lot of my childhood mooching about the gardens with the dogs and being ‘insulted’ by the macaws and African Greys.
Hi there Sorry it's taken a while to post again, I'd lost my link to the thread! Great to hear from you, there is nothing left of the aviaries now. When we moved into the house in 2011 the visitor attraction had been closed for some time and the gardens were in quite a state of neglect because of the previous owners ill health. Not sure if the publisher is still active but I definitely plan to try and track down a copy of the booklet. I'll dig out the house paperwork and check original names but I understand that the person that built the house lived in what is now Doddington Lodge nursing home. Fascinating to read the thread, we've tried to find out more from when the gardens were open without much success. You may be interested in the info on the local history FB page which is how I found your thread by searching the garden name. All our paperwork refers to it by other names Hopton/Foxwood Bird Garden this is the first instance of seeing anything with this name. So interesting to find out more. Cleobury Mortimer Memories and History | Facebook
There are some pics on FB, the link is in my earlier posts. I've tried to source photos of the bird gardens as they were before we bought the house to no avail sadly. So interesting to read about the history and family links on here
