Found this, thought some of you maybe interested in it. Penscynor Wildlife Park. Neath - Derelict Places
Penscynor took the successful breeding group of Sooty Mangabeys from London Zoo when they went out of that species. I have never found out what happened to them on Penscynor's closure- they aren't at the nearby Monkey Sanctuary.
I recognised the squirrel monkey island , marmoset house , chimp complex and probably the penguin pool . Must be interesting living in the new houses with parts of a derelict zoo behind you . Looks like it could be dangerous for young children though .
I have very few photos, but I remember it being one of the most beautiful sites for a wildlife park, as the photos of its remains might suggest. I saw the park around 1985, back then there weren't so many Eastern colobus in UK zoos and I saw my first group of these at Penscynor. They were in a more ordered, open area of the park with gardens and flowerbeds, near to a large greenhouse. I vaguely remember some kind of walk-through tropical house. I remember capuchins in this area as well. There were no safety barriers round the colobus cage. Some primate enclosures were linked with overhead wire tunnels. The photos that have surfaced online of the ruins are generally of the sloping wooded hillside along which the 'alpine toboggan run' was routed. There were multi-level viewing primate cages along here (I remember pig-tailed macaques and I *think* woolly monkeys), and lower down was the 'new' chimp island built around 1983 (a tiny, walled concrete island). There were gibbon islands (the guide book at the time pictured 'Cosmo', a concolor gibbon, but I only remember lar gibbons), and a small-clawed otter pool. There were many aviaries for parrot and sofbilled-bird species. The guide book also mentioned sika deer and a free-flying great Indian hornbill, but I don't remember either. I think later the park housed jungle cats, but I'm not aware of their being many other ungulate or carnivore species, it was mainly primates and tropical birds. That said, I remember guanacos wandering the car park, a lone southern sea lion (which later died, its pool was converted for a meerkat exhibit), and the penguin enclosure, still visible in the link. I'm sure I remember them being lower down the hill, with a small, square, tiled pool which they shared with a white pelican. I remember a trout pond and welsh goats higher up the hill. There may have been free-roaming storks/cranes on some of the lawns also. I would be interested in any clarifications or elaborations on the above.
johnstoni has a pretty good memory of Penscynor . It was my local collection and I visited it fairly often over the years and got to know the Curator , Rob Colley who worked under difficult circumstances . The macaques were Crab-eating , they built up quite a big group of them . At one time there were many Wooly Monkeys plus other rarities , when Herbert Dornbrack transferred his collection when he left Banham to become Curator at Penscynor . Cosmo was a Pileated Gibbon , he later went to Paignton but never bred . The Chimp accommodation was not brilliant . The main outdoor enclosure was moated , the breeding male drowned soon after introduction to the enclosure . It was eventually covered with a substantial metal cage which was taken apart and moved to Cefn-yr-Erw with the Chimps . A further Chimp enclosure attached to the house was also open-fronted with solid walls . There were escapes from this and it had a barred front and roof attached . Two hand-reared male Chimps had to be shot after they approached an adjoining school . A third very tall Chimp cage was used for youngstesr but later held Mandrills . Jungle cats lived in the lower woods area and I think bred but they were not in the collection very long . As well as the free-flying Indian hornbill a White pelican roamed the grounds and could be a bit scary to small children . The photos labelled as derilect Reptile House are the old Marmoset/Tamarin House . They had a very good collection of these .
It was the first collection I worked at way back in 1992-94, sad to see it in this state, will dig out my photo's next time I'm at my parents house and scan them into the gallery. *hang on I think I have a guide book upstairs somewhere...!*
Quite a few Zoo professionals started their career at Penscynor , David Field of ZSL being one . David Armitage who worked there in its earlier years told me some facinating stories of taking the hand-reared Chimps out of the Park on 'visits' .
I have some photos of Penscynor, one or two of which are in the gallery. I didn't do well there in terms of photographs, I wasn't very old and it always seemed to rain whenever I went, but it was certainly an interesting collection in terms of enclosures and layouts, some being almost a grotto style (think of the zoo in the woods at Eastham Ferry).
Bump !! Yesterday`s South Wales papers ( Saturday 7th December 2013 ) ran a photo item about the derelict site of Penscynor - always interesting to me as I visited many times back in the day ... think some of the pictures might be identical to those previously listed on here but it`s still a fascinating if sad collection ... ( not 100% sure if copy/paste will work so please let me know if there`s a better way to do it ) Penscynor Wildlife Park: Haunting pictures show childhood favourite as it looks now - Wales Online
How fascinating, yet very sad too. I never got the chance to visit Penscynor much to my regret. Thanks for the links to the photos.
Thanks for the link . A fascinating set of photos , I recognised chimp houses , otter pen , squirrel monkey island , marmoset/tamarin house . I liked the comment in the text about the pelican eating your head , for a small child I am sure this enormous bird could be very scary ! Interesting to see some enterprising person keeping poultry in the ruins , presumably from one of the new houses .
It`s quite surreal that Chickens are now inhabiting part of the old zoo ruins!! It still has a use for animals bizarrely!
Some more photos from the site; These haunting pictures show childhood favourite Penscynor Wildlife Park as it looks now - Wales Online
