Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
Moments in a longer story.
Selected milestones in the history of London Zoo.
On this page
A society, its gardens and its animals
These dates describe the place you can learn about here. They are not a company timeline for Apollonaut.
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1826
A society is founded
Stamford Raffles and Humphry Davy found the Zoological Society of London.
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27 April 1828
The gardens open
The zoo opens in Regent’s Park, at first to the society’s Fellows.
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1837
The Giraffe House
Decimus Burton completes the Giraffe House, still in use today.
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1847
Open to all
The zoo opens to the public.
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1849–1881
A run of firsts
The first reptile house (1849), public aquarium (1853) and insect house (1881) open.
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1865
Jumbo
Jumbo the elephant arrives; he is sold to Barnum’s circus in 1882.
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1914
Mappin Terraces
The Mappin Terraces are completed, and the bear Winnipeg arrives.
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1930s
Lubetkin and Tecton
The Gorilla House and the Penguin Pool are built.
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1938
A children’s zoo
The first children’s zoo opens.
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1960s
Casson and Snowdon
Hugh Casson’s elephant and rhino pavilion and the Snowdon Aviary are built.
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2007–2016
New homes
Gorilla Kingdom (2007), Penguin Beach (2011), Tiger Territory (2013) and Land of the Lions (2016) open.
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2022
Monkey Valley
The former Snowdon Aviary reopens as Monkey Valley.
Follow the stories behind the dates
A timeline is a beginning. The longer history introduces the people and places; the sources below provide further context.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
