London Zoo

London Zoo, founded in 1829 by Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Humphrey Davy, is one of the oldest and most famous zoos in the world and is one of London's most popular attractions, with more than one million visitors a year. Run by the Zoological Society of London, it is also a research institution, dedicated to the breeding and thereby saving of endangered species. Particular attractions are rare Asiatic lions, a special display of nocturnal animals, and from the summer 1994 a children's zoo. The main entrance is on the Outer Circle.

London Zoo Map

Important Information:

Official site: www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo

Address: Outer Circle, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, England

Opening hours: 10am-5:30pm

Always opened on: Spring Bank Holiday - Britain (last Monday, May), Summer Bank Holiday - Britain outside Scotland (last Monday, Aug)

Always closed on: Christmas - Christian (Dec 25)

Entrance fee in GBP: Family £49.00, Adult £15.40, Concession or reduced rate £13.90, Child 15 & under £11.90, Child 2 & under FREE

Useful tips: Last admission one hour before closing. Group discounts available for 20 or more.

Parking: Pay

Disability Access: Partial facilities for persons with disabilities.

Facilities: Gift shop, Restaurant or food service

Transit: Underground: Camden Town and bus274, Regent's Park, Baker Street.

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London Zoo Highlights

Penguin Pool

The Regent's Park Zoo Penguin Pool (1934) is a small but charming modernist functional folly. It is one of a series of pavilions and buildings designed for London's Regent's Park Zoo by Lubetkin, Drake and Tecton. It main virtue, other than providing hours of entertainment for both penguin and penguin voyeur, is its seminal use of reinforced concrete to form the two interlocking concrete ramps. These sloping penguin podia are four feet wide and vary in thickness from six inches at the top to three inches at the bottom where they emerge into a pool of water and run, unsupported for a length of forty-six feet. Though the architect, Berthold Lubetkin was more influenced by Russian Constructivism, the penguin pool seems to owe more to French purist painting than to the Russian avant-garde.