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Longleat Safari Park 50th Anniversary exhibition
‘It is advisable not to place your head in a lion’s mouth’
As it’s the 50th anniversary of our incredible Safari Park, the Great Hall is playing host to a display of original cartoons created in response to the controversy surrounding the opening of the Safari in 1966.
The cartoons showcased focus on two basic but very different themes – the spectacle of a member of the peerage openly seeking to make money and the possibility that the lions might eat visitors, including both paying guests and unofficial guests (would-be burglars) – or even members of the Thynne family.
‘Man, Tigers and Kangaroos’
Although we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of our amazing Safari Park, the tradition of keeping exotic animals at Longleat dates back, not 50 years, but over 280 years! And in many ways the 6th Marquess’s ambitious plan was continuing tradition rather than breaking with it.
Based on new research, this exhibition explores the history of a menagerie created in the formal gardens at Longleat in the 1730s for the 2nd Viscount Weymouth and a pheasantry which succeeded this later in the 18th century. Records documenting the exchange of animals and birds, including Kangaroos and Great Bustards, with the royal menagerie at Kew will be on display for the first time, as well as evidence for the creation of a natural history museum at the Pheasantry.