Having spoken to a fellow zoochatter earlier this evening about a pub local to me that has a mini zoo in the pub gardens it got me thinking... I never even knew this place existed until asked about it so there must be quite a few other pubs with animals in the garden. I figured this would be a good place to list them all for future reference, after all what's better than beer AND animals! The pub in question is the checkers inn in Woolmer Green, Hertfordshire. Going to pop in for lunch there on Thursday so can report back as to what they have!
The Fen Bell Inn, St Mary Hoo in Kent is another. A small collection but a nice variety. An interesting enclosure is their raccoon which is kept in one of the owl aviaries. They've applied for a zoo licence but until it's granted all of the animal enclosures have had to be screened off.
Have you visited devilfish? I was tempted to go back in October but didn't know if it was open at the time. Owl and raccoon sounds a little crazy!
The Penycae Inn , only a couple of miles from the Wales Monkey and Ape Centre in South Wales , has a Zoo Licence . Meercats , marmosets , red-crowned cranes and some nice waterfowl are amongst the species here . I reported on it earlier in the year .
Over the years many pubs have kept animals in their gardens, often only a handful or even just the odd one or two like the pub in Weybridge, Surrey that kept a lar Gibbon for instance. Another in Walton-on-thames just had an aviary of finches and canaries. But others, like the ones mentioned have a mini-zoo! The Bear Inn in Romford used to have a small zoo with bears strangely enough. An interesting subject.
Fascinating stuff I have heard of the pub with a bear before (in keepercontact maybe?), I know there is also a pub In Essex somewhere with an aviary of softbills in the garden as the owner of the Facebook group 'softbill keepers' runs the pub there.
Visited on Thursday but sadly the zoo part was closed for winter. I could see from the fence though that it is quite small but had owls, domestics and marmosets. I will be visiting in spring when it's open once again.
I'd forgotten that I've uploaded some photos from the Fen Bell Inn to the gallery: http://www.zoochat.com/722/zoo-licence-application-sign-fen-bell-428503/ http://www.zoochat.com/722/beer-garden-enclosures-fen-bell-inn-428506/ http://www.zoochat.com/722/monkey-walk-fen-bell-inn-october-428505/ http://www.zoochat.com/722/owl-enclosures-fen-bell-inn-october-428504/