Here Be Tygers
Posted: December 5th, 2021, 1:56 pm
The wild animals at the Tower of London had a residency of nearly 600 years, ending only after the construction of London Zoo in the 1830s, and their history was not without its dramatic moments. I'd have given a lot to see the polar bear catching its own fish in the Thames. 
https://www.historyextra.com/period/mod ... menagerie/
My interest in the subject was initially piqued by the Grauniad's modern tale of escaped beasts all over Britain (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... our-street). But it swiftly became clear that London had everywhere else beaten.
For example, in this stirring account of Wombwell's travelling menagerie, which managed to lose a tiger in 1810, right in the middle of Piccadilly. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-aY ... illy+Tiger
And to think, the best that my generation could manage was the bull who fled the Royal Smithfield Show in the 1970s, and who made it nearly as far as Harrods before he was eventually rounded up. A former girlfriend of mine was supposed to have been in charge of him at the time. Oooops.
BJ
https://www.historyextra.com/period/mod ... menagerie/
My interest in the subject was initially piqued by the Grauniad's modern tale of escaped beasts all over Britain (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... our-street). But it swiftly became clear that London had everywhere else beaten.
For example, in this stirring account of Wombwell's travelling menagerie, which managed to lose a tiger in 1810, right in the middle of Piccadilly. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-aY ... illy+Tiger
And to think, the best that my generation could manage was the bull who fled the Royal Smithfield Show in the 1970s, and who made it nearly as far as Harrods before he was eventually rounded up. A former girlfriend of mine was supposed to have been in charge of him at the time. Oooops.
BJ