Visits to zoos that don't exist anymore

OK

I know where they are, but I am still refurbishing and decorating my new flat (I have just been painting the skirting board where my workstation will be). I will also have to install a new monitor and new software before I can start scanning again. Don't hold your breath

Why did I forget Belle Vue and Morecambe Winged World from my list above?

Alan

 

Closed collections I have visited include :-
Malvern Hills Wildlife Park
Poole Serpentarium
Blackpool Tower Aquarium
Knowle Animal Sanctuary
Cricket St Thomas
Windsor Safari Park
There may be more but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Gentle Lemur, I've started breathing again now!

 

Yes,I have been to Wassenaar too, around the same era. In fact I walked around it in a snowstorm in winter, must have been rather mad in those days.

Another from these lists that I forgot; Norfolk Wildlife Park of course. Excellent in its heyday.

 

Norfolk Wildlife Park, I visited this zoo in 1985 when in Great Yarmouth, it was quite a good place if I remember, It closed shortly after I believe, do you know in what year exactly and what was the reason for closure.

 

Two more I have thought of, The Blackpool Tower Zoo, housed inside the tower complex itself, and Knaresborough Zoo, North Yorkshire, it closed in the mid eighties when being run by Nick Nyoka, neither place is missed!

 

I never went to Knareborough, but I saw an 'Animal Squad' programme about how it was closed. What was most upsetting was when the bodies of two Asiatic black bears were thrown into a skip.

 

Isn't this still going as Heronfield animal rescue centre?

 

Long gone. About fifteen years ago I visited its former site, and you could still see the shape of what was once a zoo.

Would that be Heathfield, possibly, in East Sussex? I think they had a car museum as well as a zoo, and various other attractions as well.

 

An interesting thread! My list is longer than I would have thought; I'm not sure how many of these places are mourned, even if the passing of any zoo is the cause of some sadness because, under different circumstances, each could have been better....

1. Genk (Limburgse) - every bit as horrible as the hype would suggest
2. Paris, Vincennes - only temporarily closed, of course
3. Lubeck - small, but grim
4. Omega Park - in Portugal. Very worthy, a bit dull - and hopelessly lacking in commercial focus
5. Bognor Regis - my local zoo as a child. Pretty terrible, really - but I loved it! Nightmarish combination of animals and plastic, moving models of gnomes and fairytale characters.
6. Spring Hill - a grotty wildfowl place in East Sussex.
7. Windsor - killer whale in a bath tub.
8. Cheddar Aquarium - I struggle to remember this one.
9. Ventnor Tropical Bird Park - on the Isle of Wight. Quite nice, I think, but not especially memorable.
10. Kilverstone - went with the XYZ Club in 1984. It smelt terrible. I lost my packed lunch. Wish I'd concentrated more on the animals.
11. Cricket St Thomas - as others have suggested, wasted potential.
12. Glasgow - a real waste - should have been so much better. An insane director didn't help. Last time I went he literally kicked me off the premises.
13. Southport - had its charms, but zoos and funfairs are not a good combo.
14. Basildon - vile in every way.
15. Cotwall End - funny little place near Dudley; had a few native species; think it may still exist as a farm park or something. Not exactly the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
16. Mole Hall - sad and tatty.
17. Carrick Green - just dreadful. Threatened by the owner for taking a photo. A washing line was up in the middle of the place, drying someone's clothes. Animals: Howletts surplus (you could recognise the recycled signs).
18. Gatwick - nothing special.
19. Flimwell - another grotty wildfowl park in East Sussex.
20. Druidstone - a mara, a few macaws, and that was about it. Well worth the journey!
21. Merley - rather nice, in a understated 1960s kind of way.
22. Rode - wonderful; but scruffy and under-resourced.
23. Riber Castle - fairly dreadful.
24. Malvern - amongst the worst. I remember a rhea, or an emu, in foot-deep mud. Achieved fame when a capybara escaped and evaded capture. Horrible.
25. @ Bristol - trendy zoo with very few animals - a few reptiles and a bird or to. For some reason, not popular with the masses.
26. Norfolk - missed its prime; went when it re-opened and it was on a hiding to nothing.
27. Hillside - very beautiful, but tucked into someone's back garden in an upmarket village in Cheshire. Not the best of sites.
28. RSCC, Sandwich - see Zoochat passim
29. Leeds Castle Aviaries - nothing special but quite nicely done; a shame they had to go, really.

 

......zoos that don't exist any more

I went to Southampton Zoo in 1971 -- transit place for Chipperfields.
Also forgot about the recently closed Leeds Castle -- Lady Baillie must be turning in her grave over its demise.
And the Otter Trust at Bungay in Suffolk, the only place I've seen Spotted-necked Otter

 

Thanks Sooty Mangabey

I also visited Gatwick Zoo (very good for chacalacas, curassows and guans) and Basildon (nothing spwecial, but with a bad reputation). Staff at Antwerp and Planckendael Zoos said that Genk was the worst zoo in the world and expected Antwerp to provide veterinary advice at Genk didn't want to pay for veterinary staff.

 

Thanks Sooty Mangabey

I also visited Gatwick Zoo (very good for chacalacas, curassows and guans) and Basildon (nothing special). Staff at Antwerp and Planckendael Zoos said that Genk was the worst zoo in the world and expected Antwerp to provide veterinary advice at Genk didn't want to pay for veterinary staff.

 

I wasn't aware of this fact, although the place is a lot different to when I was younger. As a child it had rhesus macaques, a tiger, a baboon, a llama and a puma. It was more zoological (for want of a better word) than it is now. Now it appears to be domestics and the occasional orphaned animal.
Incidentally this is the place where I got one of the chinchillas from!

I don't know whether to edit my list to reflect the fact it's still in existence or not!

 

The staff at Antwerp and Planckendael could be right.....Limburgse Zoo at Genk WAS a terrible place !

 

I never went to Southampton, but I completely echo your comments about Leeds Castle and the Otter Trust. Both had very picturesque and interesting settings.

Alan

 

The 3 i can think of are
Glasgow zoo, Argyll wildlife park and Oban zoological world.
In Australia, just outside Sydney was Wildlife world, i visited in 1999, now gone.

 

Off the top of my head, the ones I remember visiting are:

Mole Hall- No real loss; what I remember of it were two species of otter, a pair of aged chimps (that might still be alive?) and a mass of either fallow or sika deer with mouldy cabbages in their feed troughs
Leeds Castle- A pleasant enough bird garden; still the only place I have ever seen a Peruvian thick-knee and had a range of other interesting birds
Poole Aquarium and Serpentarium- I remember little of the place but can recall a mixed Nile crocodile/alligator exhibit, lemon sharks, an alligator snapping turtle and the model railway on the top level
Wildwalk @ Bristol- I remember enjoying this place immensely as a small child- there was the large jungle walkthrough and a small number of other live exhibits (the only African pygmy mice I have ever seen spring to mind).

 

Guilsborough Wildlife Park

Guilsborough Wildlife Park, good setting, but poor housing, tropical birds, carnivores,primates.Lilford Park, also in Northants,walled bird garden with Kori Bustards etc.

 

Guilsborough's owners decided to concentrate on the garden, which is still open. A few Caribbean Flamingoes and a Blue and Yellow Macaw survive from its earlier incarnation.