London Zoo’s Aquarium: The End

The news came in an email to Fellows: announcement of the inevitable end—after 96 years—of London Zoo’s Aquarium. Opened in 1924, it was then state of the art but for decades now it has been realised that the aquarium had reached the end of its useful life. It has been ‘refreshed’ a number of times, sometimes cosmetically—the entrance for example—sometimes structurally. The original large tanks were made of slate which sometimes split to spectacular and dangerous effect. Their concrete replacements were slowly affected by movement of the ground. The huge storage and filtration system for sea water (bought by ship and road tanker) has aged and better systems are now used. Forty years ago or more, Gwynne Vevers, Curator of the Aquarium (among the many jobs he did at the Zoo) told me the Aquarium needed to be replaced.

Edward George Boulenger (1888-1946) then Curator of Reptiles, prepared the outline plan after visits to large aquaria in continental Europe and became Director of the Aquarium when it was finished. John James Joass was the architect, as he was for the Mappin Terraces. The engineering of the water circulation, filtration and electrical systems was the key to success and was undertaken by Alexander Gibb and Partners. There was no plastic then and the piping for the sea water system was lined with glass since copper is lethal to marine invertebrates.

The Society failed to raise enough money to build a new Aquarium outside the Zoo but in London, while the commercial large aquarium opened in the old County Hall and in an ideal spot to attract tourists. I see the plan is now to have some sort of coral reef exhibit in the relatively new insect house and a freshwater exhibit at Whipsnade.

Even when the Aquarium was new there were others, around the coast of Britain attracting visitors However, the number of large public aquaria worldwide, most in the private sector, has led traditional zoos unable to compete. Huge heavily stocked tanks and underwater tunnels have been, and are, the order of the day for exhibition purposes, even if unsuitable for many of the inhabitants.

For those readers who have never been to London Zoo, the Aquarium was incorporated into the bottom of the Mappin Terraces, a naturalistic Hagenbeck-inspired, artificial rock edifice that rises 21 metres above Regent’s Park. When the Mappins were built in 1913-14, space was left for an aquarium underneath. Unable to proceed with the work because of the First World War, construction of the aquarium had to be delayed until the 1920s.

The whole arrangement of storage tanks high under the peaks of the Mappins, filtration system and access to the tanks for servicing was all very cleverly arranged. The only signs of the overlying structure are the wide columns in the public area. There are three halls within the structure; one freshwater; one sea water and one tropical. extending curvilinearly for 136 metres. A corner tank in the tropical hall once housed a manatee.

The famous diagram of the Aquarium showing how it fits beneath the Mappin Terraces

In the 1950s the Aquarium was often quiet with few visitors. This is because there was a charge to enter; the zoo ticket did not include access to the Aquarium. The public space was very dark and even the light from the tanks did not reach all corners. When considering the future of the Aquarium in the early 1990s I was told there were those who visited the Aquarium for activities other than making the acquaintance of its non-human inhabitants.

The type of animal accommodation provided on the lower and middle ranges of the Mappin Terraces (for bears, for example) have long been out of favour. The structure, like so many of the obsolete buildings are Grade II listed and efforts have been made to give it some use in housing animals. It is not generally realised that the concrete structure is a skin formed on wire-netting held in place and stretched between reinforced concrete framework. Erosion of the skin, particularly on the peaks, has needed costly repairs. Now, with the Aquarium gone, the Zoo has a considerable problem on its hands, one that has recurred since the 1980s—what to do with Mappins, underneath as well as on top.

I took this photograph of the Mappin Terraces in 1958

Guillery P. 1993. The Buildings of London Zoo. London: Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England.

Vevers HG. 1976. Management of a public aquarium. Symposia of the Zoological Society of London 40, 105-108.