The Site History

The history of Cobtree Manor Park was a real surprise to me. I am not originally from Maidstone but I have lived and worked in the town for 11 years now and I was intrigued to find out that it once had a zoo in this exact park. It was Maidstone Zoo from 1934 until 1959 and was owned by Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake. In the 16th Century, Cobtree was owned by Sir Thomas Wyatt of Allington Castle before being passed onto the Tyrwhitt-Drake family. Sir Garrard was a passionate collector of wild animals and showed them in a travelling menagerie until finally using the animals to set up a zoo at his home in Cobtree. He had a fascination for the zebra and a story circulated that he once even painted a donkey with black and white stripes so he could admire it from his window! Among the other animals he kept were elephants, chimpanzees, emus, a lion and exotic birds. The zoo was even bombed during the second world war. Sir Garrard eventually died in 1964 childless and bequethed his estate which includes Cobtree to the people of Maidstone. Both Sir Garrard and his wife set up the Cobtree Charity Trust in order to ensure that the estate is forever "used for the benefit of the inhabitants of Maidstone and the surrounding neighbourhood". In 1985 Cobtree Manor Park was opened on the site of the old zoo. One of the buildings still left from when the zoo existed is the Elephant House which once housed two elephants called Gert and Daisy.

Elephant house at Maidstone Zoo