Plans have been announced to reopen Leeds' Victorian bear pit in Headingley to the public, with work hoped to start later this year.
Leeds Civic Trust has confirmed it has planning permission to restore the building and grounds on Cardigan Road. As part of the plans, the trust is looking for a way to represent the site's history as a bear pit, and has produced mock-up photos showing the restored pit with a bear statue in them to show how the pit could look.
The Leeds Zoological & Botanical Gardens first opened all the way back in 1840. It was designed by William Billinton, an architect from Wakefield who had hoped the gardens would contain lakes and bridges and fountains.
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That vision never fully materialised, but the zoological gardens did have its very own bear pit - the overgrown remains of which are overlooked by the flats of Cardigan Road. A brown bear was brought into the pit from 1843 after it was empty for the first few years in an attempt to boost visitors, though birds, monkeys and tortoises were also housed.
Visitors to the zoo could climb up the building to look down on the bear in the pit below. The gardens eventually closed in 1858.
Much of the land from the gardens was sold off for development. However, the bear pit towers are still standing as one of the "few physical traces of the gardens that remain".
Leeds Civic Trust said: "Although this is primarily a restoration project (as a listed structure we are obliged to maintain the building), we will also be using this as an opportunity to remind people about the role this location played in the history of Headingley and the city.
"Inevitably, people will think about what use the structure was put to (it is called the Bear Pit after all). We are thinking about how we might represent a bear in physical form to act as a reminder of how the building was used, without in any way glorifying animal cruelty."
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