Animal magic Remembering the ‘other zoo’ – which could be making a comeback
IT’S not often you can say that the pandemic has delivered any benefits anywhere, but we have some great news to relate from north Bristol – and it’s all thanks to Covid-19.
And it’s thanks to this good news that we’ve raided the picture archives to bring you some old photos of something that many, if not most, readers who were parents or children in Bristol from the 1960s to the 1980s will remember.
A group of energetic and committed volunteers whose day-jobs have been put on hold by the coronavirus have been using the time to prepare the old Westbury Wildlife Park for re-opening.
Many older readers will remember it; in its day it was Bristol’s “other” zoo, a destination for families and school outings alike, and ever since its closure it’s been the subject of curious rumours in the locality. There are probably people who still believe there’s a menagerie of captive animals living there. (NB: There aren’t.)
The 11-acre site was formerly part of the Holmwood estate, a huge stretch of north west Bristol which also included Badock’s Wood – in the early 20th century Sir Stanley Badock owned the estate and Holmwood House. Much of the estate land nowadays is covered by housing in Westbury-on-Trym and Southmead.
Holmwood House itself became an NCH children’s home, and in the mid-1960s naturalist David Chaffe leased some of the land to open the
Wildlife Park.
Chaffe came from a well-to-do Bristol background, grew up in Redland and Clifton and went to school at Clifton College. He kept ducks and geese in the garden as a child and spent a “gap year” working with naturalist Philip Wayre in Norfolk, before going to read geography at Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1962.
David Chaffe was a conservationist long before it was in fashion, and his great inspiration was Sir Peter Scott, who had opened his “bird sanctuary” at Slimbridge in the 1940s.
Chaffe’s Park was officially opened by Peter Scott in 1967 as the Westbury Wildlife Park and British Nature Centre, though it had been open for a while before this.
Chaffe stayed until the lease’s end in 1978, though he had been unhappy before this. Some years ago he told the Western Daily Press: “I was trapped by financial limitations. I could not display the animals and birds on the scale that
would do them justice.”
He left Bristol to pursue his interests in writing and lecturing about conservation, but the park itself lived on and was run for a few years by Jimmy Rogers, a local businessman who had also had a modest run of success playing for Bristol City in the 1950s and early 60s.
By the 1980s, however, it was in trouble both financially and with new animal welfare legislation. It lost its zoo licence and had to close to the public in 1986, though volunteers maintained the site and the animals there for years afterwards, and with periodic attempts to keep the encroaching vegetation at bay.
One of the trustees, Jacqueline Young, who has been involved with the park since the 1970s, paid daily visits over the years to feed and look after the last of the animals, but the site was far too much for one person to cope with.
The Post’s news archives are littered with periodic news stories about attempts to reopen the place in some form or other. This is
In its heyday the park was what we would nowadays call a petting zoo – there weren’t any giraffes or lions or elephants, but there were plenty of deer, donkeys, goats, tropical birds and at least one seal. And of course some of them periodically escaped, such as Aries, the barbary sheep, which made its way onto the roof of a house in Westbury village. Alas we do not seem to have any photos of a far more sensational escape, that of a seven foot python who made a bid for freedom in 1979. And as it was 1979, said python was named … (no, not Monty) … Evel Knievel. Fortunately, the local constabulary were able to call upon the services of Constable Tim Toat, who knew how to deal with pythons as he kept them himself. The snake was found wrapped round a tree and safely returned
unsurprising since to anyone who knows anything about the place, it really is a hidden gem, a concealed stretch of nature which even near neighbours know little or nothing about.
This time, though, the plans are serious, and it’s all thanks to the coronavirus as a group of people, most of them professionals in their thirties, have used their lockdown and furlough time to bring the place back into use.
Kira Emslie, one of the project managers, told BT: “I used to work in events, but with Covid, nobody’s working in events at the moment. My partner Johnathan became a trustee in the park and as we went into lockdown we realized we had an entire team of people who are highly skilled in infrastructure, ecology and so on.
“We’d been thinking about it for ages, and it seemed the right moment to put all our skills and energy into the park because we all got some money from the government, we can live off that so why not used the time to produce something for the community?”
Clearing 11 acres that has become progressively more overgrown since the 1980s is a huge undertaking. They’ve also had to clear away rusting animal cages, reinstate water-courses and ponds and a dilapidated building – hopefully to be used as a café or workshop – to be brought back into use.
“Now the big nasty jobs are nearly done, and we’re at the stage where we’re almost ready to start making it beautiful, the stage where we can ask volunteers to come and help create a community garden, reinstate lawns, paint the fences.”
Kira reckons that the park will be open to the public once more in the spring or summer of next year. “We want to be as inclusive as possible, so we will be ‘policing’ opening hours, with people signing in and out, and with days for people who are shielding, days when children and parents can come in, days for school groups and so on.
“’Policing’ sounds a bit odd, I know, but if we have it open to different groups at different times we can make sure everyone enjoys it.
“There won’t be any animals this time – just the wildlife that’s already there naturally.”
The park project is seeking volunteers, and also needs to raise £5,000 for the next stage of work. To donate, go to https://tinyurl. com/y36n3s2n
For more information, see www. wwpf.uk and for regular updates see the park’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/wwpfbristol
Got any stories or memories of the park? Email us at at Bristol. Times@b-nm.co.uk