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Below is an extract from the 1947 Belle Vue Zoo Guide  Down at the Longsight end of the
Elephant House was a space for the hippo.
 There was also had an outside pool where you could watch him use his huge yellow teeth to devour loaves of bread.  Or as in the picture below balls of bran.  But the exhibit I remember so clearly was the glass case inside the building. that contained the pierced skull of a hippo. The hippo in question was called Gracie and she died as the results of injuries from a fight with her son Nicholas. One of Nicholas' tusks pierced Gracie's skull. She died on December 5, 1944. The lower jaw of her skull, with the hole created by Nicholas' tusk, is now in The Manchester Museum. 
The image below was generously donated
by Al Martin.
In 1969 an extension was built on the Elephant House to create a Tropical River House. At a cost of over £60,000 a structure was created that housed tapirs, hippos, pygmy hippos, flamingos, toucans and spider monkeys. The hippos had a much bigger pool to swim in at this new location. All the material on this web site is © David Boardman, unless otherwise stated, and may not be copied, downloaded or otherwise reproduced or retransmitted without the written permission of the webmaster. Any contravention of the copyright of others is unintentional and will be corrected immediately when brought to the attention of the webmaster. |
