Zoo
1. CAMEL RIDES
Highgate Road, Gospel Oak, NW5 1PB
For a budget camel ride, walk up Highgate Road. On the corner next to Orientalist Carpets and Rugs sits a noble legless ungulate, glorious in faded concrete. Hop over the railing for a quick perch.
2. MEMORIAL WALK
Highgate Cemetery, N6 6PJ
Take a walk through the quiet, shrubby surroundings of Highgate Cemetery and pay a visit to these headstones:
- - Charles Cruft, founder of Cruft’s dog show.
- - Stella Gibbons, monkey-named author of Cold Comfort Farm.
- - Lucian Freud, esteemed painter of humans and dogs.
- - Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy who invented the babelfish.
- - T S Eliot, champion of feline ingenuity in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
- - The final grave is the undisputed highlight: George Wombwell. You can’t miss it because there’s a large stone lion sitting on the lid. Wombwell was the founder of Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie, which toured the country in wagons.
3. ELEPHANT STABLE
Octave, Endell Street, WC2H 9BA
Try staggering up the conveniently shallow steps in the basement of Octave, the jazz bar on Endell Street. They were made that way for Victorian stage elephants, because this building was the animal depot for the 19th-century West End theatres. One day two bulls broke loose and smashed the other pens, liberating a host of strange animals into the streets of Soho. Not much has changed.
4. TOFU ENCLOSURE
Plender Street, Camden, NW1 0JT
Love meat but don’t want to eat it? Or just fancy deceiving your taste buds? Head for The Loving Hut, a restaurant that specialises in tofu sculpted into a carnivore’s dream. It’s bean curd, Jim, but not as we know it. Try the Barbecued Veggie Spare Ribs or the Sizzling Veggie King Prawns. Or, if you’re after something more traditional, how about Vegan Fish and Chips? The menu is encyclopaedic, and everything looks so plump and roasted and real. It’s hardly honest food but on the plus side, deceit’s never been so delicious.
5. HIPPOPOTAMUS SHED
British Museum, WC1B 3DG
In 1850, an Egyptian hippo called Obasych was delivered from the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt in exchange for a greyhound. He lived in London Zoo and inspired nationwide hippomania. You can still visit an Egyptian hippo in London. Take some blu-tack and go to the Egyptian Gallery at the British Museum. Made in 1850 BC, the blue hippo is decorated with river plants of the Nile. Why not boost the native population by modelling a replica out of blu-tack? Leave your hippo somewhere in the museum as an epitaph to Obasych.
6. MOLE HILLS
Grant Museum, UCL, WC1E 6DE
Visit the Grant Museum on a weekday afternoon and ask to meet their moles. They’re in a bit of a pickle.
7. RODENT RUN
Shoreditch
Belgian-born street artist “Roa” specialises in large-size, black-and-white animals that throb with a feral urbanity. Around Shoreditch you can see his hare (Hackney Rd), beaver (Hackney Rd), squirrel (Club Row), stoat (Rivington St) and stork (Hanbury St) among others. “Graffiti is one of the most free art expressions of the world” says Roa.
8. NAKED MOLE RAT COLONY
Queen Mary University, Mile End, E1 4NS
How much do you know about Naked Mole Rats? Bald. Pink. Wrinkly. One eminent scientist described them as ‘sabre-toothed sausages’. And yet they possess an extraordinary characteristic: they’re highly resistant to cancer. Naked mole rat studies are at the cutting edge of biomedical research and yet there’s only one naked mole rat colony in the UK, at Queen Mary’s University. Sadly you’re not allowed near them, but in the centre of the campus Queen Mary’s has another unexpected underground colony for you to unearth.
9. BIG CAT TERRITORY
Tobacco Dock, Wapping, E1W 2SF
Enter Tobacco Dock by Porter’s Walk and you’ll meet the Bengali beast, reared up and paw forward. Give him a high five. On this spot in 1857, a little boy stroked the big cat when it escaped from a local menagerie and was promptly knocked down and carried off in the tiger’s maw. Charles Jamrach, the German menagerie-owner, gave chase and literally pulled the boy from the jaws of death. Jamrach later sold the tiger to George Wombwell, who features in #2.
10. ISLE OF DOGS
Mudchute City Farm, E14 3HP
A hop, spit and a jump from the world’s foremost financial centre is London’s largest farm. Sheep graze in the shadow of Canary Wharf skyscrapers and Irish Moiled cows mimic their office-bound neighbours, hot-desking freely across 32 acres. We recommend meeting Boxer the Llama, who can spit like a fizzing gross profit margin. Don’t miss the mid-afternoon duck walk.
13. MOUSE HOUSE
Philpot Lane
Since 1862 two mice have been locked in battle over a piece of cheese. Can you spot London’s oldest street art in Philpot Lane?
14. DUCKKEEPER’S COTTAGE
St James’ Park
Next time you’re feeding squirrels in St James’s Park, visit the picture-perfect Duck Keeper’s Cottage at the eastern end of the lake. In the 19th Century, this was the unlikely HQ of the megalomaniac Acclimatisation Society whose mission was to transplant interesting new plants and animals across the globe. In terms of animals, interesting often meant tasty. This global movement achieved some ‘successful’ acclimitisations: these were the people who brought cane toads and rabbits to Australia and Japanese knotweed and grey squirrels to Britain. They also had a hand in the devastating introduction of starlings to the USA. The Duck Keeper’s Cottage became the Society’s clubhouse when they merged with The Ornithological Society of London in 1867. It was in this cottage that Acclimitisation Dinners were held. At one of these, steamed kangaroo was served to help members judge whether it was worth introducing kangaroos to England; unfortunately, they decided it wasn’t. This is why you can feed plenty of grey squirrels, but sadly no kangaroos, in St James’s Park today.
Walk down the main steps at Waterloo Station and use the zebra to get to York Road. Oddly, zebra crossings were originally blue and yellow. Turn left and use the raised walkway to cross. The first panda was installed on this spot in 1962. Panda crossings had triangular stripes and only lasted five years. Head towards the Eye and cross Westminster Bridge. Use the pelican to reach Portcullis House. Pelicans replaced pandas with red and green men. Incidentally, you’re passing the site of the first pedestrian crossing in the world. Built on Bridge Street in 1868, it had police-operated semaphore arms. You’ll need to use another pelican to get to St James’s Park, and two more to get to Buckingham Palace. Walk alongside Green Park and use the toucan, designed for pedestrians and bicycles, to get to the traffic island. They’re called toucans because two can cross together. Now take the pegasus, introduced in 2010, towards Hyde Park. It’s a toucan-pelican for horses: the panel two metres high is for mounted riders. You’re only missing a puffin now. See if you can find one. These intelligent sensor-controlled crossings are taking over our streets. They have coloured men on the same side as waiting pedestrians and a revolving signal under the operating panel. You will always wait when you press a puffin. There was once a mythical tiger with black and yellow stripes, but it’s only ever been seen in Aylsebury, Buckinghamshire, between 2005 and 2007. Leave the tube and walk to Bookmongers, Coldharbour Lane. Enter and look for Bookdog, generally to be found sitting on an upturned cardboard box by the Biography section. Pat Bookdog and leave the shop. Set a course for Blenheim Gardens, Brixton Hill. Once there, stride to The Windmill. You may notice a figure moving above. This is Roofdog. But to see, you must believe. If time, enter the pub and enjoy its scuzzy surrounds; poster on poster on poster, the wallpaper of the damned. Head out to the beer garden where you will find floordogs beneath a large NO BARKING sign. Bird spotting can be a time consuming business. We are proud to present the urbanite’s guide to speedy twitching. The parts of London where pigeons fear to tread: observe the plastic owl on Concert Road Approach then walk to Vauxhall. There’s a decoy vulture on a house in Tyre Street. They’ll always be there, rain or shine. Don’t bother with binoculars. In this little Thames-side garden, a spectral goat stands tall above a simple gravestone. He’s made of beach detritus, old u-bends and bones. He commemorates the animals that died in 2001 ‘not of Foot and Mouth but of the cure for Foot and Mouth’: those that were slaughtered by the army and burnt. You’re a Victorian naturalist. Someone presents you with a stack of bones. What are they supposed to look like? South London is rich in wrongly imagined animals; visit two on this walk. Horniman Museum, Forest Hill. Find the walrus in the taxidermy gallery. Walri traditionally have loose folds of skin to keep them warm, but instead of leaving any slack the team preparing this specimen just kept stuffing this poor creature until it was entirely taut and puffed out. Now head to Crystal Palace through Sydenham Hill Woods, a great wild spot. Notice the spray-painted badger near the railway tunnel and head up into Crystal Palace Park. These scale-model dinosaurs are way off the mark but on their Jurassic island they’re a majestic spectacle. If you go down to Wimbledon today, you’re sure of a big surprise. Giles Brandreth’s prize-winning collection of teddy bears is residing in the Polka Theatre on the Broadway. Take a picnic and gad about with Winnie, Fozzie, Pooh, Paddington, Pudsey, Sooty and friends. When out for walkies with your fallow deer, take care not to disturb the dogs in Richmond Park lest a snatch of smartphone footage turns your pet into a viral phenomenon. Ever noticed there aren’t any good cetaceous ghost walks? In January 2006 a young Bottlenose fe-whale swam up the Thames and died near Albert Bridge. Pay tribute to this unfortunate mammal by walking from Albert Bridge to the Natural History Museum, her final resting place. The skeleton is kept behind the scenes for research purposes, but head for the Whale Hall and contemplate the other skeletons there. These were some of the largest, most intelligent creatures on the planet. Stand next to the life-size model of a blue whale, the biggest creature ever to exist. Dogs aren’t always invited to partake in human rituals. Weddings, baptisms and bah mitzvahs are usually off the agenda. In Hyde Park, however, those plucky Victorians bucked the trend by giving their pets a proper burial in a smart little cemetery all of their own. You can go there to pay your last respects: contact the park rangers (0207 298 2000) and book an appointment. Dress up smart and scatter biscuits on the tombs. Fancy a feline smoking companion? First you need the right equipment. Slip on your velvet robe de chambre and slide into Davidoff’s at the west end of Jermyn Street. Sample their walk-in humidor and buy a box of Turkish cigarettes. Now walk 50 yards down Jermyn Street, donning your topper. Enter Hilditch & Key and make your way to the rear section of the shop, where Bates the nineteenth-century hatter’s has been millining since 2010. In pride of place sits Binks, admired and loved by everyone, as you will discover. Light up and engage in catty repartee. Gastronomes rub along with gastropods on the streets of Soho: an escargot d’or adorns the railings outside Marco Pierre White’s aptly named establishment on Greek Street, which also boasts a distinguished mosaic in the doorway. Real live molluscs bask in the secluded Phoenix Community Garden behind Blackwells. Unfortunately the O’Conor Don pub (now the Coach Makers) has closed, former home of the official London snail racing championships, but a new addition has arrived in St Anne’s Court to make up for it: a pink and protuberant ‘rolling fool’ – utterly bizarre and worth a pilgrimage. 
15. ZEBRAS, PANDAS AND PELICANS
16. BRIXTON DOGS
17. THE AVIARY
Waterloo and Vauxhall Bridges
18. GOAT YARD
Ballast Quay, Greenwich, SE10 9PD
19. ANATOMICALLY INACCURATE WORLD
Forest Hill to Crystal Park, SE23 3PQ
20. TEDDY BEAR PIT
Polka Theatre, Wimbledon, SW19 1SB
21. DOG HERDS
Richmond Park, TW10 5HS
22. GHOST WHALE WATCHING
Albert Bridge to South Kensington, SW7 5BD
23. PET CEMETERY
Hyde Park Pet Cemetery, north side
24. SMOKER’S CORNER
Hilditch & Key, Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6NP
25. INVERTEBRATE HOUSE
Soho
