name the park

[diane monkey]

I went on holiday in the 8o's in the uk.

To a park that had deer. We entered a field of deer. on a slope. but can not remember the name. any ideas.

 

[SMR]

Could be one of any number of places. Most stately homes have deer herds, and there are a lot of them.

 

[johnstoni.]

Roughly which part of the country are you talking? Do you have any photographs?

 

[Johnny Morris.]

Could be Dartmoor, but then again it could be almost anywhere.

 

[diane monkey]

either the midlands, devon, dorset or cornwall, isle of wight.

 

[zoogiraffe]

either the midlands, devon, dorset or cornwall, isle of wight.

Any chance of narrowing it down more than that?,because if you include the chance that it could be a Stately Home you could be looking at close on 100 possible places it could be just for those area's alone!!

 

[diane monkey]

It was not a stately home.

 

[Johnny Morris.]

It was not a stately home.

Are you on a wind up?

 

[zoogiraffe]

It was not a stately home.

Right well that still leaves alot of places it could be still figure you have only halved the number of possible places,it could be,anything else you may remember would help narrow it further to keep people on here a sporting chance.

May best guess at the moment is the old walk through deer enclosure at West Midlands Safari Park.

 

[Parrotsandrew]

Is there any chance it could have been Robin Hill Country Park on the Isle of Wight? I've just looked it up, albeit in Anthony Smith's "Animals on View" so from the 1970s, and the description says:-

"The principal feature of Robin Hill is the degree of familiarity it permits between the visitors and the visited. There is, for example, a ten-acre 'contact' walk-through enclosure where its Deer, Wallabies, domestic animals and free-flying birds are far more accessible to us than in normal cages."

I'm sure I read bad reports of Robin Hill in the 1980s, so it must still have been on the go then. Of course the real place for contact with Deer was at the Lowther Wildlife Country Park in the 1970s! My father had a very entertaining dual with a Japanese Sika stag that kept butting him at our picnic table (in future years whenever he looked displeased we called it his "Deer face"), and I remember witnessing a young Formosan Sika stag kick a small boy to the ground. No lawsuits then, it was all part of a good day out!

 

[diane monkey]

Thank you just been on the robin hood site.

looks a bit familar.

It was a quiet park with just the aniamls.
definatley the park i visted

you guys are brilliant.

 

[Goretex]

And do animals still live in Robin Hill? I looked it up and only seems to have rides, no animals there.

 

[Pertinax]

And do animals still live in Robin Hill? I looked it up and only seems to have rides, no animals there.

No animals anymore. There were quite a few escapes (Wallabies etc) and Prairie Dogs lived both outside the Fence as well as inside. Also the Fallow Deer escaped into the nearby woods and started to breed. I think they were later either shot or caught up and moved elsewhere.

 

[Pertinax]

Of course the real place for contact with Deer was at the Lowther Wildlife Country Park in the 1970s! My father had a very entertaining dual with a Japanese Sika stag that kept butting him at our picnic table .... and I remember witnessing a young Formosan Sika stag kick a small boy to the ground. No lawsuits then, it was all part of a good day out!

I presume it was in summer and trying to get at the food? Sika do seem comparatively unafraid of people and with sharp antlers a stag could be lethal if it attacked you seriously, such as in the Rut.

 

[johnstoni.]

Thank you just been on the robin hood site.

looks a bit familar.

It was a quiet park with just the aniamls.
definatley the park i visted

you guys are brilliant.

There would have been a lake at the bottom of the hill, with wildfowl. At the top of the hill would have been various cages for primates (mainly macaques, baboons), as well as a house for 'indoor' species such as fruit bats, crocodiles, and birds, and nearby cages for coatis and servals. Other paddocks on the hill may have held rheas, llamas, and domestic cattle breeds.

 

[johnstoni.]

No animals anymore. There were quite a few escapes (Wallabies etc) and Prairie Dogs lived both outside the Fence as well as inside. Also the Fallow Deer escaped into the nearby woods and started to breed. I think they were later either shot or caught up and moved elsewhere.

As far as I know, there are still prairie dogs living wild inside the boundaries of the site. There have been escapes of serval on the Isle of Wight during Robin Hill's time as an animal collection, although I am not certain where the animals originated from.

 

[Pertinax]

As far as I know, there are still prairie dogs living wild inside the boundaries of the site. There have been escapes of serval on the Isle of Wight during Robin Hill's time as an animal collection, although I am not certain where the animals originated from.

Probably as I imagine they are difficult to eradicate totally.

When it shut as an animal park there was also some critisism over the disorganised catchup procedures of the larger animals e.g. the wallabies and deer, being wildly pursued around the place.

 

[Parrotsandrew]

I presume it was in summer and trying to get at the food? Sika do seem comparatively unafraid of people and with sharp antlers a stag could be lethal if it attacked you seriously, such as in the Rut.

Yes, it was in summer - we were on holiday in the Lake District. We went to Lowther several times as I liked it so much, but I think these incidents took place in 1976 so it was definitely a hot summer - would the parched conditions make the Deer more likely to steal visitors' food? Obviously the Japanese stag was not a particularly large animal, but it was very persistent and kept striking my father with its antlers (sorry, just pausing to chuckle at the memory - I must dig out my photographs). The small boy who was kicked by the Formosan stag was not at a picnic table, but just running around playing when the stag pursued him and kicked him. I had seen the animal approaching other visitors and looking a bit aggressive.

 

[Pertinax]

Sika Deer are a bit weird. Even completely wild stags during the Rut can look very menacing and they often don't run away immediately like other Deer do. If I'm watching one at that time of year I often have the uncomfortable feeling its sizing me up- though I don't think a wild one would ever attack.