Being able to visit a castle as well as a zoo seems to be a wonderful combination, but evidently not a lot of Brits think so because Dudley only receives a paltry 150,000 visitors per year. I spent some time today browsing through the ZooChat gallery in an attempt to locate a splendid exhibit, but sadly there doesn't seem a lot on offer at this zoo. In the book "The IZES Guide to British Zoos & Aquariums" Tim Brown writes glowingly about exhibits featuring red pandas, Humboldt penguins, small-clawed otters and flamingos, but the rest of the 3-page review is definitely hit-and-miss.
It appears that the zoo is hampered by the old infrastructure that I assume is heritage listed and thus not able to be bulldozed into oblivion. Tim Brown calls Lubetkin's work "an architectural albatross around the neck of the zoo" but is there any way that Dudley can embrace and promote its history more than it is already doing? Are there any grand plans for the future? Is there a possibility for this zoo to receive more than 150,000 visitors each year?
Being able to visit a castle as well as a zoo seems to be a wonderful combination, but evidently not a lot of Brits think so because Dudley only receives a paltry 150,000 visitors per year. I spent some time today browsing through the ZooChat gallery in an attempt to locate a splendid exhibit, but sadly there doesn't seem a lot on offer at this zoo. In the book "The IZES Guide to British Zoos & Aquariums" Tim Brown writes glowingly about exhibits featuring red pandas, Humboldt penguins, small-clawed otters and flamingos, but the rest of the 3-page review is definitely hit-and-miss.
It appears that the zoo is hampered by the old infrastructure that I assume is heritage listed and thus not able to be bulldozed into oblivion. Tim Brown calls Lubetkin's work "an architectural albatross around the neck of the zoo" but is there any way that Dudley can embrace and promote its history more than it is already doing? Are there any grand plans for the future? Is there a possibility for this zoo to receive more than 150,000 visitors each year?
Being a regular visitor to Dudley I have to admit that I don't really pay too much attention to the castle as it's always the same, my most recent visit was the first time i've set foot in the courtyard in about 10 years. I guess a lot of people enjoy the historu thpugh as it was fairly busy. As for nice exhibits, the lions have a large hillside enclosure and the chimp exhibit is large but under-used imho.
They have also done a lot with the Tecton complex (tiger, gelada, bear enclosure) but I teally don't know how they could get more visitors. I'm shocked that the visitor numbers are that low, it always seems to do brisk trade whenever I visit!
