3-028-702 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The new Elephant-House in the Zoological Society's Gardens, Regent's Park, 1869. '...a commodious and handsome new building...designed by Mr. Bartlett, the superintendent,...and by Mr. Salvin, the architect, for the dwelling of the elephants and rhinoceroses...The front of this red brick building...has a pretty and picturesque elevation; with steep gables highly decorated in red tiles and carved timbers, and with three doorways, each adorned by a stone effigy of the head of a beast. These sculptures, by Mr. W. Plows, represent an elephant above the middle doorway, and over the end doorways a rhinoceros...A wide passage or corridor...is open along one side to the eight spacious compartments where the animals will be lodged; with a sufficient interval, for safety, between the bars of their cages, and the low barrier restraining the visitors from too close an approach to their formidable tusks, or even to the meddlesome trunks of the friendly elephants, which are sometimes tempted by the artificial flowers of a lady's bonnet...The African elephant, which dances and sings, or rather trumpets with a terrible voice, at the bidding of his keeper,...is one of the most amusing inmates of these gardens, where so much entertainment is to be found'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.