0 Comments | Add

Rate & Share:

Info:

Series:

Lair of the Beasts: Creatures on the Rampage

The Big Cats of Britain

By Nick Redfern February 27, 2010

Chillington Hall, near the town of Brewood.
© Bob Trate

For decades, numerous people throughout the British Isles have reported people seeing large unidentified cats roaming the country that are very often described as “black-panthers,” pumas and leopards. Of course, it scarcely needs to be said that Britain is not home to an indigenous type of big-cat. So, this raises an obvious question: from where are these animals coming?

Although many people suggest they are merely the descendents of exotic pets that escaped into the wild in the last 30 or 40 years or so, there is evidence to suggest the mystery may be a far older one than has previously been realized.

For example, only nine miles from the fringes of England’s Cannock Chase woods – a location well known for its wealth of big-cat activity - and specifically near the town of Brewood, stands Chillington Hall. The present hall is actually the third one: a castle was built on the site in the 12th century, while today’s hall was constructed in 1724. It is, however, the second Chillington Hall that specifically concerns us. It was there, in the 1500s, that one of the first private zoos was established by nobleman Sir John Giffard.

According to local legend, on one fateful day, Sir John’s favorite animal, a leopard no less, escaped from the confines of its enclosure and charged headlong into the wilds of the surrounding Staffordshire countryside. Arming himself with a cross-bow, Sir John, along with his son, quickly set off in hot pursuit of the marauding animal; and, to his total horror, found it poised to attack a terror-stricken mother and child who were cowering on the ground.

In an instant, according to the old story at least, Sir John drew his bow and took careful and quick aim. At that very moment, his son cried out: “Breathe deep, pull hard!” Sir John sensibly, and rapidly, took his son’s advice and fired. With but just one shot, the leopard fell to the floor, utterly stone dead. Giffard’s Cross – which still stands to this day – was raised where the creature is reputed to have taken its last breath. Meanwhile, Sir John decided it would be a very good idea to adopt his son’s words as the family’s motto.

Of course, if one large, exotic cat was roaming around the area as far back as the 1500s, then who knows how many other possible escapees there might well have been that weren’t cut down by the power of Sir John’s mighty bow-and-arrow? It is a sobering thought, indeed, to think that there may possibly have been large, wild cats living stealthily in the woods and forests of England centuries ago – and perhaps even reproducing and thriving, too. And there is far more to come.

More than a century ago, an English zoologist – Dr. John Kerr Butter - kept an absolute menagerie of wild and exotic animals in his back-yard, which stood on the grounds of what is today Cannock’s Police Station. Indeed, Butter’s neighbors were regularly confronted by a truly wild assortment of animals craning their necks over his garden fence – including, astonishingly enough, nothing less than a fully-grown giraffe!

Interestingly, records reveal, Butter had personally raised and tamed a wild cat – specifically an ocelot - a feat then considered impossible by the zoological elite; and something that earned the doctor the distinction of being made a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society. And, somewhat amusingly, patients at Dr. Butter’s office would often find themselves sat in the waiting room next to his favorite monkey, Antony, who had practically turned Butter’s practice into a definitive home-from-home.

Not only that: Butter had also amassed a large collection of artifacts in his laboratory, including everything from bear-skins to alligator-jaws that had been made into pen-and-ink stands, as well as jars of carefully-preserved animal-organs. Butter was also held in very high regard by the populace of Cannock. For example, when the Boer War began, the doctor immediately elected to do his duty for his country, and on the day of his departure for the war-torn battlefield, recorded the Chase Post newspaper, “nearly the whole town gathered to see him off.”

But there was a far more significant development on the horizon. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, food supplies in the Cannock area dwindled drastically and Dr. Butter was unfortunately forced to let his animals go.

In the period from 2007 to 2009, I spoke with several Staffordshire-based historians and consulted the available newspaper reports of the day, but I did not uncover any real indication as to what had specifically happened to the doctor’s wide and varied animal collection – which, as noted, included large cats.

Certainly, there is no available evidence suggesting the creatures had been donated to new zoos. But, equally, there is no evidence to suggest they were put to sleep, either. They had just vanished – completely and utterly. That is, unless the good doctor had, perhaps, decided that the wisest approach to solving the problem was to clandestinely release them into the wilds of the area late one night when everyone was asleep and tucked up in their beds.

If he had done so, and if there were several such animals that subsequently successfully bred, then that would very possibly go some significant way towards possibly explaining the presence of large, wild cats throughout the region today.

As all of the above demonstrates, the mystery of the big-cats of Britain may be a very old one indeed.

Nick Redfern is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Monsters of Texas, co-written with Ken Gerhard.