Bristol Zoo is expecting a bumper crowd this Saturday as it prepares to close its doors after 186 years and move to a new site. The zoo opened its doors in Clifton in 1836, making it the fifth oldest zoo in the world, and it still has many of its original Victorian buildings, such as its gate house, the old giraffe house and its monkey temple.
Its owner, the Bristol Zoological Society, made the decision to close it due to financial pressures caused by the pandemic, and focus its resources on its sister site in south Gloucestershire. The society has owned the site of the Wild Place Project, just off Junction 17 of the M5, since the 1960s, but for many years had only used it for breeding and quarantine purposes and it was not open to visitors.
It was also used as a nursery for Bristol Zoo’s botanical gardens, and to grow fodder for its animals. But in 2008 the society submitted plans to the council for a 55-hectare walking safari park, and Wild Place opened five years later.
