Guides to Belle Vue Zoological Gardens 1891-1917

These brittle pages hold an entire world. Belle Vue Zoological Gardens opened in 1836 as industrial Manchester's answer to the smog-choked streets, a place where the middle classes could breathe, promenade, and forget the factories for an afternoon. The guides collected here span 1891 to 1917, documenting a garden at its magnificent peak and watching quietly as the old order gave way. You will find the animals, yes: the snake house, the ape house, the collections that drew crowds from across the north. But you will also find something rarer: the texture of a vanished leisure. The Picture Lake with its 60 by 100 foot painted backdrop, the fireworks that lit summer skies, the Figure of 8 Toboggan and the pleasures of Laughterland. The 1917 guide notes a car park added to the old stabling, horse carriages fading, the world changing. Yet a cup of tea still costs the same. These are the small continuities that make history human.