Walworth’s Forgotten Zoo

A talk on South London’s rival to Regent’s Zoo, by the Cuming Museum curator Judy Aitken.

Hear about menagerie owner Edward Cross’s ambition to cash in on the craze for zoos and pleasure gardens in late Georgian and Victorian London.  The Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens’ catalogue of disasters and successes enlivened the once sleepy hamlet of Walworth for over forty years before both Gardens and Walworth succumbed to urbanisation.  Our story reveals this surprising part of Southwark’s lost past.

Many fantastic posters survive but sadly little else.  However there may just be a skeleton or two...