Qualla: Longleat Safari and Adventure Park

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1966, two Englishmen decided to put lions in a Wiltshire field and let the public drive through. Jimmy Chipperfield came from a circus dynasty that had handled big cats for generations. The 6th Marquess of Bath came from one of England's oldest aristocratic families, with a sprawling Elizabethan estate to maintain and rapidly rising bills. The combination was unprecedented: a stately home and a safari park sharing the same parkland, a working partnership between a circus performer and a peer of the realm. The world's first drive-through safari park outside Africa opened that spring at Longleat. Visitors locked their doors. The lions paid no attention.

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: The Circus Brain Behind the Lions

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Jimmy Chipperfield, born 1912 and died 1990, had spent his life with animals nobody else knew how to handle. His family's circus, Chipperfield's, was one of the great British travelling shows, and Jimmy had grown up training and transporting the kind of creatures most people only...

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: Sixty Acres of Africa in Wiltshire

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The East African Reserve became the heart of the park, sixty acres laid out so that visitors creep through in their cars while Rothschild's giraffes drift between Grant's zebras and black wildebeest. Ostriches stalk past the windows on legs that look engineered for a different pl...

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: Nico the Gorilla and His Island

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For decades, the small island in Half Mile Lake belonged to a western lowland gorilla named Nico. He lived alone, with keepers ferrying his food across by boat, and a heated indoor refuge for English winters. When he died on 7 January 2018 at the age of 56, he was one of the olde...

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: The Miniature Railway

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Long before the lions arrived, the Longleat Railway was already running. Established in 1965 and expanded in 1976, the ridable miniature railway threads through scenic woodland and along the edge of Half Mile Lake. It is among the busiest miniature railways in the country. The fi...

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: An Idea That Worked

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 1967 BBC documentary The Lions of Longleat introduced the country to what Chipperfield and Lord Bath had built. A 55-part series called Lion Country followed in 1998, and since 2000 the BBC's Animal Park has returned to Longleat almost every year. The model spread: drive-thro...