London Calling: Zoo, Wimbledon and Kew highlights

Not that London Zoo

Regent’s Park Zoo, just north of the city centre, is perhaps the world’s most famous and certainly the world’s first scientific zoo. It opened in 1847 and, at its peak, attracted some three million visitors each year.

Lesser known is the smaller Children’s Zoo in Battersea Park, on the south side of the mighty River Thames.

The Festival of Britain in 1951 saw a celebration of arts, science and technology in Battersea Park and its full transformation into pleasure gardens. This included a small zoo which has now become a powerhouse in animal conservation, welcoming rare kittens, goats and piglets amongst many others.

Back in the 50s, the animals shared their space with fairground attractions, including carousels and rollercoasters, but it seemed to be, surprisingly, a happy environment!

The zoo entrance remains exactly as it was from the beginning and ring-tailed lemurs are the first to greet visitors. But there is a lot more to see, and it is a delightful, relatively quiet corner of London, for children in particular.

“A big part of what we do is talking about farm animals and domestic breeds, which for a lot of young children is their first experience of animals,” said zoo manager, Jamie Baker.

The zoo worked with Ealing Wildlife Group and helped to release 3,000 harvest mice back into the wilds of West London, which was then featured on the David Attenborough programme, Wild London.

It has not always been plain sailing though. The zoo faced closure in 2003 when the local authority threatened to withdraw funding. However, thousands of people signed a petition for it to be saved, and after a short closure, it re-opened with new animals and updated enclosures. The Heap family, which runs the New Forest Wildlife Park, rescued the zoo in 2004 and their son, Ed, is the general manager.

Anyone for tennis?

South West London is the world home of tennis.

There are actually two major venues. Queen’s Club Championships take place on grass courts in West Kensington, which is around three miles (4.8km) from its much larger and more famous championship in Wimbledon.

Queen’s is one of the oldest tennis tournaments in the world, dating from 1866, and serves as a grass court warm up for Wimbledon. Originally, the tournament was titled ‘The Championship of London’ and, in 2026, former champion Serena Williams announced a comeback, starting at Queen’s, and this added a ripple of excitement to tennis fans.

South of the river in Wimbledon, the most famous tennis championships in the world kick off on June 29 and run through to July 12. These will be the 139th series of matches featuring the world’s top players.

An innovation this year will be the introduction of video reviews on line calls etc. Initially, players will only be able to challenge certain calls on Centre Court, Number One Court and the show courts, but there are plans to expand this. Maybe the days of ‘You cannot be serious’ outbursts are over!

There are ambitious plans to expand the current tournament area using land purchased across the road from a local golf club. This has been a highly charged debate with locals, but it remains the largest revenue-earner of any single sports site in the world. It is estimated that it generates income of an astonishing £3m (€3.47m) to the immediate locality.

Your columnist lives nearby and can also attest to a certain ‘carnival atmosphere’ of excitement throughout SW19 with the famous players and visiting celebrities to be seen everywhere!

Kew

Running right through until January 2027 is what promises to be a unique opportunity in West London to explore the work of Henry Moore, one of Britain’s most renowned artists.

Henry Spencer Moore was born in 1898 and became famous for the semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures he created. Lesser known, he was also a renowned artist more generally with famous works including those depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz in the Second World War.

Though overwhelmingly abstract, Moore’s sculptures typically depicted mother-and-child or reclining figures. They are usually suggestive of the female body, but in the 1950s, he sculpted family groups in his usual enigmatic style.

The Royal Botanical Gardens are, of course, a perfect backdrop for visually challenging, bold artwork and, for the rest of the year, 30 monumental sculptures will grace the gardens and allow visitors a truly unique experience. An accompanying indoor exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art will have nearly 100 of Moore’s smaller-scale works, including sculptures, drawings, models and sketches, most of which have never been on public display before.

Summarising the unique display, the Royal Botanical Gardens claim “The Henry Moore: Monumental Nature exhibition brings art and nature together on an extraordinary scale, blurring boundaries between sculpture and living form”.

During the summer, ‘Wine Walks’ are also on offer providing visitors an opportunity to enjoy a guided wine tasting whilst walking through the sculptures. What could be nicer?

Life savers

London is lucky enough to have an excellent air ambulance service, and the red helicopters are a fairly common sight in a city of nearly 10 million people, renowned for its congested roads and multiple calls on the emergency services.

London’s Air Ambulance is a registered charity, and they respond, on average, to six seriously injured patients each day. They literally save lives in the UK capital on a daily basis and their website for more information and to donate is londonsairambulance.org.uk

For the first time in their history, this month saw an all-female team take to the skies. The charity hopes that publicity around this will encourage more young women into aviation and emergency medicine careers.

Captain Adele Dobler said the role combined “your passion of flying with the opportunity to help somebody on the worst day of their life. So, yeah there’s not many more things in life that are more rewarding.”

Dr Charlotte Ashworth said visibility was important for younger generations, “We should see this as the norm, and we should see this to show that doors are open for women”.

Go ladies!

Read Richard Lamberth’s last month’s article: London Calling – May 2026