Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
A zoo in a royal park.
An introduction to the setting of London Zoo, on the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park, with the Regent’s Canal passing by.
On this page
Read the setting
London Zoo stands on the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park, and its 36 acres have been laid out and rebuilt many times since Decimus Burton planned the first gardens in 1828.
A guide can give context without turning a place into a backdrop. Notice how older brick buildings sit beside concrete and steel, and how paths, tunnels and footbridges stitch the zoo together.
Beside the canal
The Regent’s Canal passes the former Snowdon Aviary, whose steel masts and mesh can be seen from the towpath and from Primrose Hill to the north.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was made, repaired and kept. A photograph alone cannot tell you who designed a building or the conditions in which it was built.
A Regent’s Park chapter
The zoo shows how ideas about keeping animals changed over two centuries: from Victorian animal houses to open enclosures such as Land of the Lions and Penguin Beach.
Look at the meeting of the two: a giraffe house of 1837 still in use, and enclosures built in the 2010s.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the zoo’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places, commissions their restoration or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
