Reptiles in the UK?

[EvilKittie]

Just been pondering over the past few days, thinking back at all the zoos I've visited around the UK. Not many have stood out for me in terms of their collections of reptiles. London, Cotswold and Chester have stood out for me the most.

So I was wondering what were peoples favourite reptile collections in the UK and why?

Cheers,
EK

 

[Brum]

Just been pondering over the past few days, thinking back at all the zoos I've visited around the UK. Not many have stood out for me in terms of their collections of reptiles. London, Cotswold and Chester have stood out for me the most.

So I was wondering what were peoples favourite reptile collections in the UK and why?

Cheers,
EK

For crocodilians my personal favourites are Paignton and Thrigby. I've also heard good things about Wingham and Crocodiles Of The World though I haven't visited either.
Paignton have a great reptile colletion in my opinion spread across the tropical house, desert house and Crocodile Swamp and I always enjoy visiting, even if the latter tends to get crowded during peak season and it can be a bit of a headache trying to negotiate the marauding kids and aggresive parents trying to control them.
They also have Chesters Philippine croc's on display now, fantastic news!
My personal favourite general reptile collection is probably WMSP with two you mention coming close second, (Chester & London), but it's only my favourite because of the locality of it.
Also Bristol and Cotswold deserve an obligitary mention as well. And I'm not even a massive reptile fan...........

 

[dogman]

Why have all the venomous snakes gone!!

Go back 15-20yrs or so and they were still a major part of uk collections big and small.

I Even remember the then even smaller iow zoo in an old style pit set up reptile house had tons of species and specimens

-forest,spectacled,monocled,Egyptian,cape,king and various spitting cobras

-waglers pit, malyan pit, white lipped, puff adder, copperhead, saw-scaled.

-rattler spp- westerns, massasuaga, neotropical

and lots of each as well!
ok not the best set ups in the world and probably not exceptable setups for modern say zoos but traditional at the time at least.

anyway got me thinking does anyone remember some old big/memorable collections of venomous and even better have any old photos of setups and snakes, would be very interested to see!