Main Gate

Taxonomy

Code

Scope note(s)

  • The Main Gate replaced a narrower gate set between twin lodges. It is in the Italianate style that John James Joass had introduced to the Zoo. A semicircular court within the gate was originally enclosed by a colonnade of similar design, its purpose to fan visitors out across the gardens. Built 1928, brief by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell and Joan Beauchamp Procter; Sir Edward Guy Dawber, architect; columns made by G E Wallis and Sons Limited. South west kiosk added and south terrace laid out 1971 with the Sobell Pavilions, John Toovey, architect. Terrace layout altered 1984 and 1988.

Source note(s)

  • The Buildings of London Zoo

Display note(s)

    Hierarchical terms

    Main Gate

    Main Gate

      Equivalent terms

      Main Gate

        Associated terms

        Main Gate

          3 Authority record results for Main Gate

          3 results directly related Exclude narrower terms
          Mitchell, Peter Chalmers
          Person · 1864-1945

          Mitchell was the son of Rev. Alexander Mitchell, a Presbyterian minister in Dunfermline, Scotland, and Marion Chalmers. He gained his MA at the University of Aberdeen, and then went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he read natural sciences, specialising in zoology. After his honours examination in 1888, he was appointed University Demonstrator in Zoology.

          In 1911 he delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on 'The Childhood of Animals'.

          In 1896 he was the anonymous author of an article in the Saturday Review entitled 'A Biological View of English Foreign Policy', which proposed the inevitability of a final battle between Britain and Germany, in which one would be destroyed. In February 1915 He gave three lectures on the subject of evolution and foreign policy at the Royal Institution that expanded on his 1896 article. These were combined and published in the form of a book entitled 'Evolution and the War' in May 1915. In April 1916, now an Army Captain, he was made responsible for setting up a specialist department MI7(B)4 to oversee the production of military propaganda to be dropped from the air over enemy lines.

          He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1903-1935, second in length of office to his predecessor Philip Lutley Sclater. Mitchell's brainchild, Whipsnade Zoo, was opened in 1931 on the Dunstable Downs, Bedfordshire. In 1933 he was one of eleven people involved in the appeal which led to the foundation of the British Trust for Ornithology.

          On retiring, he moved to Malaga, staying there during the first six months or so of the Spanish Civil War, until the city was taken on behalf of the rebels by Italian troops. An account of his last days in Malaga, including his arrest along with Arthur Koestler, is included in Koestler's book 'Spanish Testament' and in his own memoir 'My House in Malaga', published in 1938.

          Mitchell died on 2nd July 1945 after being injured in an accident on 29th June outside London Zoo. After stepping off a bus, he was struck by a taxicab. A species of South American worm lizard, Amphisbaena mitchelli, is named in his honour. He also proved in the treatise 'On the Intestinal Tract of Mammals' that the caecum of mammals is directly homologous with the paired caeca of birds.

          Procter, Joan Beauchamp
          Person · 1897-1931

          Joan Beauchamp Procter was a British zoologist and herpetologist. She worked initially at the British Museum (Natural History) and later at the Zoological Society of London, as the first female Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo. She undertook substantial taxonomic work and made innovative contributions to veterinary practice and zoo displays. She wrote scientific and popular zoological articles, including early accounts of the behaviour of captive komodo dragons.

          Toovey, John
          Person

          Architect of London Zoo