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An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the animals.
A learned society, a park’s worth of listed buildings and some famous animals offer several ways into the story of London Zoo.
On this page
A zoo for science
The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 by Stamford Raffles and Humphry Davy, and its gardens in Regent’s Park opened in 1828, first to the society’s Fellows and, from 1847, to the public.
In 1831 animals from the Tower of London menagerie joined the collection. London Zoo is often described as the world’s oldest scientific zoo.
Listed buildings
The zoo has 12 listed buildings. Decimus Burton’s Giraffe House of 1837 is still in use; Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton’s Gorilla House and Penguin Pool of the 1930s are listed at Grade I; Hugh Casson’s elephant and rhino pavilion followed in the 1960s.
Look at how each generation built for the animals of its day, and how many of those buildings now have new uses.
Famous residents
Jumbo the elephant came to the zoo in 1865 and was sold to Barnum’s circus in 1882. In 1914 the zoo was given Winnipeg, the bear who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh, and Guy the gorilla lived here from 1947 to 1978.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
