The Tower of London is remembered as a fortress, palace and prison. For several hundred years it was also a place where kings kept exotic animals that had been given to them as gifts. Documentary detail is patchy, and several of the best-known stories are repeated more often than they are sourced.
The Horror
The usual starting point is 1235, when the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II gave Henry III three animals described as leopards, more likely lions. In 1252 Haakon IV of Norway sent Henry a polar bear with a keeper. The upkeep fell on the sheriffs of London, and the bear was reportedly allowed to fish in the Thames.
In 1255 an elephant arrived. Henry is said to have taxed Londoners to pay for a house for it. It died young, and the cause is traditionally given as a daily gallon of wine. That cause is reported, not proven.
By the reign of Elizabeth I the public could see the animals. One report says that entry could be gained for free by bringing a cat or dog to be fed to the lions. This rests on a single popular source and is unconfirmed.
The animals were dangerous. Mary Jenkinson, a keeper’s wife, is reported to have been badly mauled by a lion after patting its paw, and to have died hours after surgeons tried to amputate. Her date is unconfirmed. Alfred Copps, said to be the last zookeeper, was nearly paralysed by a boa constrictor and freed when two assistants broke the snake’s teeth.
The Legend
Other tales are often added to this list, among them a baboon that killed a sailor with a cannonball and a wolf that escaped and was never found. Both are unconfirmed.
The Modern Relic
London Zoo opened in Regent’s Park in 1828, and many Tower animals were moved there. The Duke of Wellington then decided to close the menagerie, which one account dates to 1835. Other accounts place the animals’ move earlier, at the turn of the 1830s, so the exact year of closure is not settled.
The Lion Tower, the gatehouse complex named for the animals, no longer stands. Wire sculptures of an elephant, a polar bear and lions now stand at the Tower in their place. The Tower itself received 2,817,852 visitors in 2025.
