Zoo History

Welcome to Part 2 of my jaunt through the history of Dudley Zoo. After a recent visit to this delightful collection, I became interested in the site’s history, not least because it contains a castle whose origins can be traced back to the 11th century and the world’s largest collection of Tecton buildings. The presence of so many listed and historic buildings inevitably imposes limitations on what can be done with them, especially since most are no longer suitable for their original purpose. Nonetheless, many of these structures have been recently developed so that they can be used in some capacity once more. The Tectons certainly give Dudley Zoo its own identity, so it’s unsurprising that, even so many decades after they were designed and built, the zoo celebrates rather than ignores these buildings.

I’ve been commenting on Dudley Zoo’s historic structures in roughly the same order as I encountered them during my visit, so if you haven’t already, I recommend reading the first part to bring yourself up to speed. I’m picking up the tour at the top of the hill overlooking the site, where visitors can wander into the castle courtyard, witness a bird of prey flying display, and explore the partial ruins of a castle with a history spanning almost a thousand years.

Dudley Castle

The ruin you see today in the heart of the zoological gardens is the result of a huge fire, which swept through the once-magnificent palace in 1750. But this castle was not the first to be built in the area. Construction of the original castle at Dudley began in about 1070, shortly after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. It was built by the knight Ansculf of Picquigny, a French supporter of William the Conqueror, and was made from wood. We do not know why he built here, but it may have been that the site had access to a well on the hilltop. It was a classic example of a motte and bailey castle – the motte being the mound on which the keep stands, and the bailey being the flat area within the curtain wall. The only thing that remains from this first castle is the general shape and outline, and some of the earthworks.

At the beginning of the 12th century, the Castle passed to the Paganel family, who built the first stone castle on the site. Fulk Paganel’s reported incestuous marriage to his daughter began a black chapter in Dudley’s history. His grandson, Gervase, supported Prince Henry’s failed rebellion against his father, King Henry II. For this treason, the castle was ordered to be demolished.

The Castle passed through marriage to Ralph de Somery I, and his son, Roger de Somery II, set about rebuilding the castle in 1262. The castle was far from complete upon Roger’s death ten years later, and the construction carried on from this time into the 14th century by Roger’s heirs. The keep (the most obvious part of the castle when viewed from the town below) and the main gate date from this rebuilding.

Again through marriage, the Castle came into the possession of the de Sutton family (who later used Dudley as a surname). By the mid-14th century, they had added a chapel and a great chamber within the castle walls. By 1532, the current penniless lord permitted a distant relative, Sir John Dudley, Lord of Dudley and Duke of Northumberland, to take over the castle. He commissioned architect Sir Willian Sharrington to design a new range of domestic buildings within the courtyard. This ‘Renaissance Palace’ became known as the Sharrington Range. Apart from the Norman earthworks and the 13th-century keep, the structure that exists today mainly dates from this period.

However, Sir John Dudley was later beheaded at the order of Queen Mary I for his part in the ill-fated plot to place his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, on the throne. The castle returned to its legitimate heirs, the Sutton family. It was visited by Queen Elizabeth I in August 1575, and was considered a possible place of imprisonment for Mary, Queen of Scots, before being deemed unsuitable.

The Ward family succeeded and occasionally used the remaining domestic buildings over the next century. When the Civil War broke out in 1642, Dudley Castle was garrisoned by Royalist troops, but it was captured by Oliver Cromwell’s forces in 1646, after a two-year siege. The Parliamentarians knocked down the Gateway and Great Tower together with the wall in between so that the castle could no longer be used as a fortification. The present ruined appearance of the keep results from this decision.

After the Civil War, some habitable buildings remained and were subsequently used occasionally by the various Earls of Dudley. A stable block was built during this period, the final building to be constructed in the castle. By 1750, the Earls of Dudley had moved to Himley Hall, approximately four miles away, and the Sharrington Range living quarters were rented out. On 24 July that year, the habitable portion of the castle was gutted by a huge, devastating fire, which burned for three days. The fire is rumoured to have been started by a gang of counterfeiters who were working in the cellar. It is said they believed they had been discovered and started a terrible fire to destroy evidence of their work.

During the 19th century, the castle and its grounds found a new use as a ‘Romantic Ruin’, and the Earls of Dudley carried out some tidying up to make it a place of recreation for the townspeople. Battlements on one of the remaining circular towers were reconstructed, and two Russian cannons captured during the Crimean Wars were installed in 1857, still standing today. At this time, and continuing into the early 20th century, the site was also used for fêtes and pageants. In 1937, when the Dudley Zoo was established, the castle grounds were incorporated into it.

When I visited Dudley Zoo, the castle courtyard is where daily flying displays are held, weather permitting. The former stable block has been converted into a tea room. One section of the Sharrington Range has been turned into an exhibit that details the history of Dudley Castle and includes enclosures with animals that would have lived in and around the structure, such as mice, rats, and bats. Climbing the steep spiral steps in the keep takes you up onto one of the walls, offering excellent views of the zoo and beyond.

Sea Lion Pool

Beyond the castle courtyard, a pair of symmetrically shaped Tecton pools that connect under a bridge are home to Patagonian sea lions. The Sea Lion Pool was carefully designed to sit within the existing castle moat, whose arc its curves follow. The proposed location, just beneath the curtain wall of the castle, called for sensitivity in its design and prominence. The long, low profile of the pools and the associated structures to the rear was intended to be inconspicuous, providing a large area for viewing the animals without compromising the view of the castle. To provide a visual link to the castle and avoid a noticeable clash between the old and the new, the retaining walls to the rear of the pools and the bridge passing between them were constructed in local rubble stone.

The Sea Lion Pool is probably the least ostentatious of the Tecton structures, with its most obviously Tecton flourish being the ‘shelves’ at its rear, on which a sunbathing pinniped can lie. Public viewing balconies originally overlooked the deeper parts of the pool.

Six Californian sea lions arrived at Dudley Zoo in 1937 and took up residence in the Tecton pool, but their enclosure was later adapted to house dolphins and, astonishingly, even a killer whale, or orca, known as Cuddles. Captured in the seas off Washington State in 1968, Cuddles was transported to Flamingo Park in North Yorkshire, which had paid $15,000 to bring the first captive killer whale to the UK. There, Cuddles reportedly became very aggressive, perhaps because of severe stomach ulcers he suffered from, to the extent that his keepers had to use a shark cage in order to clean his pool. In 1971, the three-ton animal was transferred to Dudley Zoo (along with some bottlenose dolphins) and housed in the converted Sea Lion Pool. Its wall had been hastily raised to allow the pool to be deeper. As you might expect, conditions were not even close to being adequate to house a killer whale – the pool was little more than twice his own size.

Unsurprisingly, Cuddles continued being aggressive. A trainer was apparently pulled into the water and pinned to the bottom of the pool, where he sustained leg and head injuries. The resulting publicity was massively useful to the zoo, and attendance soared, with 650,000 people visiting in 1971. However, the planning authorities soon intervened. They claimed that Dudley Zoo had breached building regulations and ordered the zoo to remove the extension to the pool wall. Unable to afford the cost of a purpose-built pool, Cuddles was put up for sale. A headline in The Sun newspaper announced a ‘Whale of a Sale!’, quoting an asking price of £11,000. Cuddles was set to move to a marine park in the south of France – but it wasn’t to be. On the night of 6th February 1974, Cuddles died. He was less than ten years old. A veterinary examination showed that the cause of death was a burst abscess near the heart, which may have been the result of a broken rib sustained during a training accident that had subsequently become infected.

The additional salt added to the enclosure to aid the killer whale’s buoyancy had accelerated the deterioration of the Tecton structure. It therefore underwent extensive repairs in the 1990s to once again allow the housing of sea lions. Today, the Sea Lion Pool is the only Tecton building at Dudley Zoo still used for its original purpose. However, as of this writing, in early October 2025, only one elderly female sea lion still resides there, and Dudley Zoo plans to cease keeping the species when she passes away.

Castle Restaurant

The Castle Restaurant was one of the buildings whose design needed to be particularly sensitive to the castle due to its close proximity, being located directly opposite the Sea Lion Pool. It was, of necessity, a single-storey structure, with a deliberately low profile so as not to disturb the view of the castle. Its shape was determined by the symmetrical triangular apex of the limestone outcrop on which it is set, which provides dramatic views over the steep, wooded slopes of Castle Hill to the north.

The restaurant was the main space for formal eating in the zoo. The seating area to the rear of the bar was used in the 1960s and 70s as a venue for evening entertainment, which included dancing and live acts. Local heroes Slade performed here many times, as did comedian Lenny Henry. Today, it is popularly known as the Queen Mary Restaurant, reflecting the building’s resemblance to inter-war ocean liners, which the Tecton Group may have drawn inspiration from.

Tropical Birdhouse

The Tropical Bird House was sited in perhaps the most commanding position of all the Tecton buildings. Set east of the castle on a steep, east-facing site, with views out over the wooded slopes to the north, this circular structure was built to house semi-tropical birds such as parrots. It incorporated a heated indoor house and an external cantilevered balcony, which allowed some of the birds to be displayed outside during summer. Unlike the animal houses closer to the castle, the Tropical Bird House was on a less sensitive site, which enabled the architects to create a bolder design without significant height restrictions. The central drum beneath the main house provided a discreet location for an electricity transformer station.

Historic photographs show the interior flooded with light. A circle of wire mesh dropped down under the central roof cone, creating a large aviary. White-tiled, mesh-covered enclosures of varying sizes lined the exterior wall of the entire structure from one side of the entrance to the other.

The Tropical Birdhouse is no longer used for its original purpose. Apparently, it was converted into a soft play area, but when I visited, the building didn’t seem to be in use. The paddock beneath, which once housed bison, is now home to Asiatic lions.

Moat Café

Heading away from the Sea Lion Pool and the Castle Restaurant, you’ll soon come to the penguins on your left, with a long, serpentine, split-level structure on the right. This was constructed as the Moat Café, one of three eating places within the zoo grounds. It was built on a site not originally considered suitable for a building, given that it would interrupt a key view of the castle from the moat. However, the Ministry of Works’ Inspector eventually accepted it, and, to lessen its impact, the structure was made as light and transparent as possible. It was constructed with flowing curves, designed to break up the building’s outline when viewed from above.

The side and rear elevations of the Moat Café were glazed, while the front of the building was left open to increase its transparency (though glazed panels largely enclosed it at a later date). The entrances were indicated by floating slabs suspended from the roof. The building, like all the large Tecton structures designed for the zoo, took advantage of the steep slopes of the castle grounds – in this instance, allowing the front of the building that directly faces the castle to have a low, single-storey scale but with a second basement level at the rear to house stores, a beer cellar, and staff rooms. The basement level was accessible externally from a service road at the rear of the building. The single-storey front section was built on stanchions to allow for the subsequent excavation of the land on which it stands to accommodate an aquarium, though this plan was never carried out. Today, the basement storey can be seen from a path that branches off from the main walkway and slopes down to a primate house.

The building has undergone significant alteration since its completion, most crucially in the infilling and glazing of the entire front elevation. It is no longer a café and now functions as the Zoo’s Discovery Centre education block.

Bear Ravine

As the visitor loops back towards the entrance of the zoo, the final Tecton structure is encountered: the Bear Ravine. This, in my opinion, is one of the most dramatic buildings at Dudley Zoo. The structure made full use of a deep ravine to create a dramatic landscape from which the bears could be viewed. The form allowed visitors to see the animals from above, both from the expansive, high-level, semi-circular terrace set against the hillside and from the lower, cantilevered terrace, projecting out over the ravine like the prow of a ship. The enclosure was originally much larger, but had to be modified during construction when a large cavern, approximately 15 metres deep, was discovered in the limestone beneath the site.

Bear Ravine has not housed bears for many years because it does not meet modern welfare standards. However, it has recently been repurposed and, when I visited, it was home to a herd of reindeer.

Penguin Pool

The only Tecton structure at Dudley Zoo that no longer exists is the Penguin Pool. Clearly influenced by the now-famous Penguin Pool that the Tecton Group had designed at London Zoo in 1934, just three years before Dudley Zoo opened, this kidney-shaped pool was built at road level, close to the entrance, allowing visitors a level view of the penguins whilst looking down on the water below. Both upper and lower platforms had fluid, organic forms, their edges undulating to create interesting shapes and places where the penguins could dive into the water below. To the rear of the lower platform were the nesting boxes. Small circular concrete platforms created ‘islands’ that seemed to float within the water.

In 1979, the Penguin Pool was demolished. The salt water in the pool had reacted with the steel reinforcement in the building’s concrete, causing extensive corrosion. Fortunately, the remaining Tecton structures have been cared for rather better, with a programme of renovation hopefully securing them for generations to come.

Dudley Zoo Railway

I’ve covered all of the Tecton buildings at Dudley Zoo, past and present (plus Dudley Castle), but there’s one last historical element I’d like to mention: the Zoo Railway. It was opened in June 1938 and travelled one mile through wooded land from the Bear Ravine to the zoo entrance. The line included a fully operational signal system and turntables, and there were even miniature platforms and bridges to pass over.

The two original two-ton steam engines, named Lady Sonia and Sir Richard, were built by Guest & Saunders Light Engineering of Stourbridge. Each engine, controlled by retired Great Western Railway drivers Frank Bellamy and Harry Rempton, could carry up to 150 people on ten tiny coaches, and zoo staff took part in trial runs before the railway was opened to the public.

Following the Second World War, the line was rebuilt and simplified, which meant the train used to run in reverse on the return journey. More engines were added to the railway, including diesel-powered locomotives. During the early 1970s, the railway was reduced in length; it closed in 1974, before reopening 12 months later with an even smaller track. Over the next decade, it was restored to its original length before closing for good in 1992. Today, Dudley Zoo runs a popular land train, Dotto, which carries thousands of visitors from the entrance to the heart of the zoological gardens in minutes, which means they don’t need to struggle up the often demanding hill on foot.

That concludes my trip through the rich history of Dudley Zoo. I found it to be a fascinating journey, so I think I’ll be delving into the history of other zoos in the future, especially since the 200th anniversary of London Zoo’s opening is just around the corner…