Well for me there were two main zoos that featured strongly in my childhood, with great memories from both. They are London Zoo and Chessington Zoo. Windsor Safari Park featured heavily too a bit later on.
I have strong memories of four; Whipsnade, Bristol, London & Chessington. Favourite?- Whipsnade probably(and I still have great affection for it even now), but Bristol and ZSL were both great too. I have less favourable memories of Chessington- it was pretty dire in those days!
Overwhelmingly Chester, despite Twycross being nearer. Twice-annual trips to Chester (at Easter and in the last week of the summer holidays) were a tradition for a large part of my childhood.
Hotham Park, Bognor Regis and Marwell were the two I visited most frequently, but it was always London that had the allure, particularly when I was old enough to catch the train up there by myself, from the early 1980s.
I only remember going to London and Whipsnade despite living much nearer to Chester and Twycross. I don't think we 'went to the zoo', we went away on holiday and might visit a zoo if there was one handy. Come to think of it I did go to Flamingoland when they had dolphins. We went chugging round model railway tracks instead!
My favourite childhood zoo was Twycross, we used to visit bi-annually and I used to love going. We used to visit Dudley regularly so it didn't have quite the same allure, likewise BNC as my grandad would take me every other weekend. I used to love going to the safari park as well (WMSP) and we visited every summer when they opened a new attraction; I remember being amazed at being so close to the rhino's and lions when they became part of the drive-through sections rather than drive-past! Summer breaks always involved a zoo visit or two as well, Paignton was my favourite seaside zoo and still is to this day!
I know what you mean about Chessington, but of course when you are young you don`t always realise it until much later in life. It`s funny how those early memories stick with you and maybe cloud over the not so great bits? We always used to visit zoos when we went anywhere on holiday, in fact if I could persuade my parents to visit certain areas - it was only because I knew there was a zoo(or two) there in the hope of visiting them!!
I think I knew the zoo part of Chessington was pretty abysmal even back then though as you say,as a child you sort of accept it more as the norm at the time.. I particularly remember some dreadful tiny cells that contained bears, and there were a number of other classic small barred cages for big cats, hyaena and chimps too, and there was even a circus tent. I'm talking about the Zoo as it was then, not now of course.
London Zoo and Chessington Zoo were the two zoos that I visited most frequently during my childhood too. My parents first took me to London Zoo when I was only three weeks old and I was a regular visitor there throughout my childhood during the 1950s and 1960s. (And I have been a frequent visitor to London Zoo throughout my adult life too.) Chessington Zoo was also another zoo that I often visited as a child; Chessington was a popular venue for family outings because was an easy journey from London and the various funfair type attractions appealed to other members of the family that didn’t share my obsession with zoos. (Although I visited Whipsnade occasionally as a child I didn’t become a frequent visitor there until the 1970s.)
As a child ( and now again ) I lived 40 km south of Rotterdam and 40 km north of Antwerp and 40 km east of me was Tilburg so these 3 collections were the first collections of which the first 2 ( Blijdorp Rotterdam and Antwerp Zoo ) made a huge impresion on me ! Later also Amsterdam Zoo ( Artis ) and Wassenaar Zoo were added to collections which infected me with the zoo-virus !
Chester Zoo and West Midlands Safari Park are the ones from my early childhood that I remember visiting!
Gladys Porter Zoo was the only one I went to on a regular basis (only zoo in the area) and I have fond memories. We did visit other zoos when we traveled, and I remember the Minnesota Zoo the best. Really big, lots of animals.
Nice idea for a post! Being from the NW area you would think of Chester, Blackpool, Knowsley, however my childhood most regularly visited and favourite zoo was Southport Zoo. It was small, so I knew most of the animals individually and the size of it also meant that an hour was often all that was needed to get my animal fix for the week, being near a fun fair and the seaside made Southport the best Zoo for me as a child. We had trips to the above mentioned too. However my two strongest memories of zoos as a child are from London Zoo and Windsor Safari Park, I remember seeing Giant Pandas at London (Chia Chia and Ching Ching) and especially looking into the eye of the Orca at the Windsor pool and getting splashed by the show. This would have been late 70's to early 80's.
Thank you, I can relate to your memories of London and Windsor, my first trip to Windsor would have been around 1971/72 not long after it opened. I knew Southport too, but not from the early days, can you remember much about the stock, species-wise in those days ?
My childhood memories of Southport always started with Mandrills, my favourite primate to date I suppose, probably because of Southport Zoo. I had to start and finish each trip with the Mandrills!. I also remember one possibly two chimps, who loved to throw their 'own muck' around from time to time. I recall the Mandrills and the Chimps were by the entrance to the left as you walked in. I also know there was a couple (1:1) African Lions, I think the male was blind. I do recall how when we took our Labrador on rare occasions she was terrified of those lions and would scoot passed their enclosure (pretty small I think) quickly. I remember a large sign at the zoo about how far different species could jump compared to their body size. Just beyond this was the 'pet zoo' bit, they had all the usual's here, I especially recall a runt of a cow called Mini Moo, who would open her mouth for you to throw food down her throat, this was food bought from the entrance of course. I remember owls, tortoises and other birds on the ground, probably some species of pheasants I wasn't really bothered about then. Apart from the Mandrill's, the next best for me as a child was the two otters (Asian short clawed if I remember rightly), you where allowed to feed them through the wire fencing (at least I did!) and they had the softest, velvet like paws and were so very gentle too. The animals above are from the 1980's memories mainly.
Chester Zoo was the most exciting place in the world for me as a child. We occasionally went to Dublin Zoo, Blackpool Zoo and Martin Mere but apart from the smell of lavender (from the nick nacks in the gift shop) and coffee (from the cafe) as you went through the visitor centre at Martin Mere almost all my memories are of Chester. It was where I always wanted to go for a birthday treat and even now if I go to visit my dad it is where we go. I was also a junior member and was on the Really Wild Show roadshow when it was filmed at Chester. I was really shy and socially awkward so I never made friends with other junior members so I don't have massively positive memories of those events and outings which included a trip to Twycross too. I also remember Haigh Hall and Southport. I didn't really appreciate that they weren't the greatest zoos and I know my parents weren't massively keen on going to them. I was also allowed a zoo visit on holiday when possible but we usually went to Germany and whilst there wasn't a zoo in the immediate area where we went, my parents should be glad that I didn't have a better grasp of geography then as I'm sure half the zoos in western Europe were in a couple of hours driving time radius!
Yes the Mandrills, they really put Southport Zoo on the map, the cage I remember was the one near the reptile house, which was squared with an adjoining house making a rough "L" shape. The chimps were always very unpredictable, there were four by the time I went, two adults and two juveniles.
