Belle Vue Zoological Gardens was a large zoo, amusement park, exhibition hall complex and speedway stadium in Belle Vue, Manchester, England, opened in 1836. The gardens were initially intended to be an entertainment for the genteel middle classes, with formal gardens and dancing on open-air platforms during the summer. Popular rides included the 60 mph Bobs roller coaster and the Scenic Railway. The Kings Hall housed the Hallé Orchestra for several years and hosted concerts by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and Led Zeppelin.
About Belle Vue Zoological Gardens in brief
Belle Vue Zoological Gardens was a large zoo, amusement park, exhibition hall complex and speedway stadium in Belle Vue, Manchester, England, opened in 1836. The gardens were initially intended to be an entertainment for the genteel middle classes, with formal gardens and dancing on open-air platforms during the summer. But they soon became one of the most popular attractions in Northern England. Popular rides included the 60 mph Bobs roller coaster and the Scenic Railway. The Kings Hall housed the Hallé Orchestra for several years and hosted concerts by artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and Led Zeppelin. The zoo closed in September 1977 after its owners decided they could no longer afford its losses of £100,000 a year. The amusement park remained open on summer weekends until 1980. The land was sold in 1982, and the site finally cleared in 1987. All that remains of Belle VUE today is a greyhound racing stadium and a snooker hall built in the stadium’s car park. At its peak the zoo occupied 165 acres and attracted more than two million visitors a year, up to 250,000 of whom visited over the Easter weekend. It was then the largest exhibition space outside London, but competition from the G-Mex exhibition and conference centre in central Manchester led directly to its closure in 1987, and it was later sold to a hotelier in the 1960s.
It is still open to visitors today, but with a much reduced number of animals than it had in the early 20th century. The park is now owned by a private company and is open to the public on weekends and on weekdays. It has been described as the “showground of the world’’ and “one of Britain’s most popular tourist attractions”. It opened its doors to visitors in June 1836 and was the brainchild of entrepreneur and part-time gardener John Jennison. Jennison had previously run a small aviary at his home, the beginnings of the zoo that over the years grew to become the third-largest in the United Kingdom. The family decided that their zoological collection had to be expanded as a matter of priority, and by 1839, lions, elephants and other exotic African animals had been added to the zoo. The Gardens were an immediate success, but were followed by a neighbouring racecourse in 1847, but the neighbouring gardens were an even greater success. In 1835 Jennison was approached by businessman George Gill, who suggested that he lease a public house in 35. acres of open land between Kirkmanshulme Lane and Hyde Road as a more suitable site for his aviary. In December 1836 Jennison signed a 99-year lease at a rent of £135 per annum. For an extra £100 a year he leased additional land to extend the western boundary to Redgate Lane, where he made a second entrance to the site for finance expansion.
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This page is based on the article Belle Vue Zoological Gardens published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
