Chester visitor guide
Chester Zoo
The most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain, three miles north of the walls, and a full day rather than an afternoon. Here is how to do it properly.
Almost every mistake people make at Chester Zoo comes from underestimating it. It is not a city attraction you fit in between the cathedral and lunch. The public site covers 130 acres, the collection runs to more than 500 species, and close to two million people a year come through the gates — the most of any wildlife attraction in Britain.
Arrive at two in the afternoon and you will see perhaps a third of it, mostly at a trot. Arrive at opening and you will still be walking at five. Plan a day, not a visit.
The scale, in numbers
130 acres of public zoo, within total holdings of around 400 acres.
500+ species and close to 30,000 animals.
Around 2 million visitors a year — the most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain.
Opened 10 June 1931. Still run by the charity formed to hold it in 1934.
Mottershead’s zoo without bars
Chester Zoo opened on 10 June 1931, built by George Mottershead and his family — a market gardener’s son who had wanted, since seeing a cramped Victorian menagerie as a boy, to make a zoo without cages. That idea is not decoration on the founding story; it is why the place looks the way it does.
Following the continental example of Carl Hagenbeck, Mottershead used moats and ditches instead of iron bars, so that animals were separated from visitors by water and level changes rather than by a grille. Extended across the whole site over ninety years, that principle produces the thing people notice without being able to name it: you look at animals here rather than through something at them. It also explains the long sight lines and the amount of walking — enclosures separated by moats take up a great deal more room than cages.
The zoo is run by the North of England Zoological Society, a charity formed in 1934, and it receives no government funding. That is worth knowing when you look at the ticket price: admission is the conservation budget. The society manages international studbooks for endangered species and runs breeding programmes across Europe.
Islands
The headline development, and the part to see if you only have half a day. Islands opened in 2015 as a £40 million project that extended the zoo by fifteen acres to the south, built as six themed island habitats drawn from the Philippines and Indonesia, with a boat ride through part of it and a restaurant at the centre. It rolled out in phases to 2017.
It is also the most crowded section on a busy day, for the obvious reason. If the car park was full when you arrived, do Islands first and work back.
How to do a day here
Book, and go early
Tickets sell out in school holidays and on warm weekends, so book before you travel rather than turning up. Then arrive at opening: the first hour is the quietest, the animals are more active, and you get the popular houses before the queues form.
Pick a direction and commit
The single most common error is drifting. The site is too big to wander and too big to see twice, so choose a loop at the entrance and follow it. If you have children, work out in advance which three or four things they actually want to see and build the route round those — everything else becomes a bonus rather than a disappointment.
Budget for the walking
130 acres with moated enclosures means real distances. Small legs give out long before the map does, and there is far more walking than a city day. Sensible shoes, and plan a proper sit-down lunch rather than eating on the move.
Weather
The zoo is overwhelmingly outdoors. There are indoor houses to shelter in, but a full wet day here is hard work — if the forecast is bad and your dates are flexible, swap the zoo for the city and see Chester in the rain, which is genuinely better in poor weather than most places.
Getting there
The zoo is at Upton, about three miles north of the city centre, so it needs the bus or the car from anywhere inside the walls. The useful thing to know is that the Upton Park and Ride site — 460 spaces — sits beside the zoo, which means a family can park in one place, do the zoo one day and ride into the city the next. Parking in Chester has the three sites and the days they matter.
If you are coming from further afield, Chester station is on the main line from London Euston to Holyhead, with Liverpool forty minutes away. Getting here covers the connections.
Practicalities
Time needed. A full day. Half a day sees roughly a third.
Book ahead in school holidays and on warm weekends.
Dogs. Assistance dogs only — see dog-friendly Chester for what does work with a dog.
Parking. Upton Park and Ride is next door and doubles as your city parking.
If it rains hard. Reschedule if you can; most of the site is open air.
Plan the rest of your trip
Chester with kids covers the rest of the family options, most of which are free — the walls, the amphitheatre and the river. Attractions has all twenty in the city, Chester in a day is the walking route for the day you are not at the zoo, and where to stay explains which areas suit families.