This is one of the best photos I have seen of the exterior of the lion house, and I have looked around a fair amount for some.
I am enjoying these photos Andrew, they bring back childhood memories for me, I hope that there are more to follow.
From a historical point of view this is fascinating. The lion house was demolished long before I was born, so this gives me a better idea of where it was situated AND its in colour!
I'd love to see more photos of the building, both exterior and interior. The ZSL library's not bad, but this gives me a true understanding of the building's size and scale-it certainly looks imposing!
Did the pre-Terrace house have any merits? With some tweaking, could it have survived to the present day?
It was a great building, big, light, spacious and airy- for the visitors that is... the acoustics were great too when the Lions roared. But practically speaking, I think the barred cages both inside and out, were a thing of the past. As I've mentioned before, although there were both indoor and outdoor cages, the cats did not often interchange between them on a daily basis, there were too many cats exhibited to allow for that.
It was a great building, big, light, spacious and airy- for the visitors that is... the acoustics were great too when the Lions roared. But practically speaking, I think the barred cages both inside and out, were a thing of the past. As I've mentioned before, although there were both indoor and outdoor cages, the cats did not often interchange between them on a daily basis, there were too many cats exhibited to allow for that.
The funny thing is that the Lubetkin penguin pool (which I think I can see behind the trees) compliments its surroundings better than it does today-it doesnt look out of place!
(Thats my opinion-maybe it was as ghastly in the 1960s as it is today!)
from memory I think there were five outdoor cages- three large semicircular ones and two smaller rectangular ones in between. Inside there were about ten standard exhibition cages with offshow dens behind.
Species; Around this time I remember a pair of Tigers, a single younger Tiger, an elderly pair of Jaguars, a female Black Jaguar(Azita) and a spotted male cub(Marquis). Probably reduced to only one pair of Lions by then, though previously they had up to five adults. There must have been Leopards and Puma too, there was a very tame black leopard female. Also a golden Cat. No Snow Leopard in later years though.
The smaller cats were mostly the ones inside in later years, not the Lions and Tigers which lived in the large outdoor cages with offshow dens- so they were never seen inside the house in the later years.
