The Monkey Temple at Bristol Zoo, Clifton, City of Bristol

Summary

The Monkey Temple was built in 1928 in a Mughal style. Possibly designed by Dr Richard Clarke, it is thought to have been inspired by both Carl Hagenbeck’s Monkey Rock at Tierpark, Germany and the Cold Lairs, an old deserted city occupied by monkeys, in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. C20 and C21 alterations.

Description

The Monkey Temple was built in 1928 in an Indian style. Possibly designed by Dr Richard Clarke, it is thought to have been inspired by both Carl Hagenbeck’s Monkey Rock at Tierpark, Germany and the Cold Lairs, an old deserted city occupied by monkeys, in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. C20 and C21 alterations.

MATERIALS: constructed of concrete, that has been rendered and painted.

PLAN: a flight of steps lead to the north side of a circular viewing platform that formed the perimeter to the parapet wall of a now infilled circular pit. To the centre of the infilled pit is a two-storey, square tower with a central dome.

EXTERIOR: the stepped approach from the north side is flanked by sloping walls that have been raised, with small sections of return walls to the viewing platform. To the top of the square newels are sculptures of crouching figures. A circular parapet wall, with a date stone inscribed 1928, marks the perimeter of the filled-in circular pit. To the centre, standing on an octagonal platform, is The Monkey Temple. The building has clasping pilasters to the corners that rise to support the continuous plat band and cornice, and to three elevations there is a frieze of five square frames that include a floriated cross to the central square, flanked by squares with lotus flowers, and blind outer frames. The principal north façade has tapered square columns either side of a doorway supporting the plat band above with a chequerboard pattern to its centre. Above is a pointed horseshoe-shaped niche with a moulded decorative surround. The subsidiary elevations have decorative panels and architrave to the former openings; the rear elevation is blind.

The perimeter wall has two breaks to give access.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

History

Bristol Zoological Gardens opened on the 11 July 1836, becoming the second zoological garden to open in England, after London Zoo in Regents Park (1828), and the fifth in Europe; the others being Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna (1752), the Jardin des Plantes in Paris (1800), and Dublin Zoo (1831). Many more were to follow, illustrating the rapid and extensive establishment of zoological gardens, alongside other C19 cultural institutions such as museums and galleries, that were being built in England and across Europe to exhibit and study the exotic animal, plant, and cultural specimens that were being provided by empire and colonisation.

Bristol Zoological Gardens was founded by The Bristol, Clifton, and West of England Zoological Society that was formed in 1835 with the intention of creating a zoo for the purposes of both education and entertainment. The society raised the funds for their venture through the sale of shares, with many prominent Bristolians, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, William Goldney, and members of the Frys, Wills and Sturges families, being among the first shareholders. They were subsequently able to purchase 12 acres of land to the north of the suburb of Clifton on the outskirts of Bristol.

The design for Bristol Zoological Gardens was produced by Richard Forrest. A landscape designer and nurseryman, Forrest, was well-respected in his field and during his career worked on several important commissions including the gardens at Syon House, London, and Eaton Hall, Cheshire, as well as producing designs for several other zoological gardens. As with all early examples of zoological gardens, the design for Bristol was much influenced by the C18 landscaped gardens of the aristocracy, and this can be seen in Forrest’s scheme that retained many of the existing mature trees, but also including the planting of specimen trees and plants, the excavation of a lake to the centre, the creation of a Grand Terrace for promenading, as well as buildings in a characteristic pavilion style. Comparison of Forrest’s plan with George Ashmead’s map of 1853, alongside knowledge of the financial restrictions of the project, suggest that Forrest’s plans were not fully implemented. Ashmead’s map shows a simplified version of Forrest’s scheme with the animal enclosures concentrated to the north of the Grand Terrace, with most of the site being given over to gardens. This would seem to reflect both the difficulty in meeting management costs and that the botanical rather than the animal attractions were the initial draw for visitors. To increase revenue, the site was increasingly hired out for events, becoming a place not only to enjoy the plants and animals, but also a place of entertainment.

From the mid-1850s the surrounding land was developed for housing, and in 1862 the first buildings of Clifton College, located to the immediate south, were built. This development and the later Bank Holiday Act of 1871 led to an increase in visitor numbers leading to extensive changes to the zoo with a clear focus on public entertainment. The new animal enclosures added at this time, such as the elephant and giraffe house, and the polar bear enclosure that abutted its north elevation, were built in domestic styles and reflected the then architectural trend to place foreign wildlife into an English domestic setting.

In the early C20 the zoo suffered a period of stagnation, and the standard of the site declined. However, from 1925, the influence of Dr Richard Clarke, as director of the society, began to steer the zoo towards the promotion of knowledge through the quality of the botanical and animal specimens, and away from the pleasure ground aspect of the site. He proposed that 'every year a new feature should be built and shewn annually' to attract increased visitor numbers. He consequently ushered in a new profitability and animal focused philosophy, with the new buildings in modern and interesting settings. These new buildings were often designed under his guidance, with some showing the influence of Carl Hagenbeck’s zoo at Tierpark, Stellingen, near Hamburg, Germany (1906), and his ideas for the dramatic presentation of animals in their “natural” habitat, with the creation of panoramas, artificial rock formations, and the removal of cages. The Monkey Temple (1928) and the polar bear enclosure (1935) were particular examples at Bristol Zoo.

Further changes occurred throughout the C20 and C21, with a move to more hygienic enclosures with tiled surfaces, to increasingly natural and open environments as animal welfare and conservation became central to the zoo’s philosophy.

The Monkey Temple built in 1928 is the second attraction that Dr Clarke added to the zoo. Its design is thought to have been influenced by both Carl Hagenbeck’s Monkey Rock exhibit at Tierpark in 1913 and the Cold Lairs in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book; an old deserted city, lost and buried in the jungle, that is occupied by a troop of unruly monkeys, the Bandar-log. It was the first attempt at Bristol Zoo to keep exotic animals in a ‘natural’ environment where they could be viewed by the public without being inhibited by bars or wires, and its design appealed to the public interest in colonial travel and adventure that writers like Kipling had inspired.

The building was originally approached from a wide flight of steps to the north side of the temple, and to the centre of a half-landing was a statue of Buddha on a tall pedestal; this was subsequently relocated to the rockery within the zoological gardens. To either side of the half landing were a short flight of steps (now concealed by the raising of the floor level) to the viewing platform that encircled the parapet wall to the pit. Within the circular pit rose a stepped octagonal platform surmounted by an Indian-style two-storey, square temple, with a central dome. On the upper step to each side of the tower were two short hexagonal piers with ball finials, and a further taller example to each of the four angles of the penultimate step.

The Monkey Temple now forms a garden folly and the circular ditch has been filled in, burying the stepped platform; the hexagonal piers have been removed. The steps to the north side, and the parapet wall are extant.

Reasons for Listing

The Monkey Temple, built in 1928, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its accomplished and creative interpretation of Carl Hagenbeck’s Monkey Rock exhibit of 1913, and its successful combination of the most modern methods of animal enclosure design with popular ideas of colonialism in a single building, which gives the building a strong aesthetic merit and visual quality;
* for its dramatic characterisation of the monkey inhabitants as the unruly Bandar-log in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book through the design references of the building, and its anticipation of the design approach of the sophisticated zoo buildings from the interwar period and the 1960s that were architecturally distinctive for their reflection of the character traits of their intended animal inhabitants;
* for its illustration of the transition between the presentation of animals in attractive, functional buildings of the C19, often designed in a classical style, towards the artistic presentation of captive animals in theatrical, and often architecturally experimental, buildings;
* although the pit has been infilled, and has reduced the legibility of how the enclosure originally functioned, the Monkey Temple enclosure exhibits a good degree of overall survival and its original form and architectural intent is readily understood from the visible historic fabric.

Historic interest:

* as an early surviving example of a Hagenbeckian-inspired building that reflects modern ideas of cageless enclosures and the dramatic presentation of animals in their natural environments, albeit contrived;
* as an evocative and important example of an animal enclosure of the inter-war period that through its design illustrates the social history aspect of how zoo visitors wanted to spend their leisure time and that escapist illusion of foreign travel that zoo buildings could provide;
* for its illustration of the evolving approaches concerning the display of exotic animals and how this informs our understanding of changing architectural approaches and public attitudes to the housing of animals in captivity.

Group value:

* with the other listed buildings at Bristol Zoological Gardens.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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