When viewing these old wood and wire cages at Howletts, its worth remembering they were never built as anything but a private individual's animal collection-they were never built from an exhibit persepective for other people to see.
In its earliest days, Howletts was mainly a mixture of these wood and wire cages, mostly for medium-sized cats, along the Woodland Walk behind the Mansion, the larger wired pens for Tigers, quite primitive metal cages and runs for Gorillas, and antelopes and deer and Bison roaming paddocks with simple wooden stockade fencing. Most of these can still be seen, dotted amongst other more modern exhibits too.
I don't think you can underestimate the importance of factors not related to enclosure size. The cage is set back from the public, rather than having a wall of glass viewing, it is set under trees in woodland, and it is in a quiet corner of the zoo. If you took this cage and put it in the middle of a busy, open, urban zoo, it would be a terrible enclosure. Situated here it is a really good facility IMO.
The cages along the Woodland Walk behind the Mansion are quite tatty(being among the original ones built at the Park) but I agree the setting is ideal. I also think a fair number of visitors miss this area altogether as it is always pretty quiet along this section.
As we have heard, the leopards have moved into a new open topped enclosure by the café. When I visited last time however this enclosure was being virtually completely refurbished, does anyone know what it is going to hold?
Actually, these enclosures weren't the original usage given over to this area. When I first visited in the summer of 1974, goggle-eyed with excitement at seeing a group of gorillas, tigers on grass and bull elephants (those old enough to remember London Zoo at that time will get my drift!), this area was given over to Wild Boar. The wolf enclosure was pretty much as it is now.
