Commuters get a daily reminder of Oxford Zoo as they pass Kidlington roundabout and see an image of its most famous occupant, Rosie the elephant.

Now more memories of the zoo, a popular attraction in the 1930s, have come from a former Kidlington villager now living in Sydney, Australia.

Yvonne Cramer, who moved with her parents, Kenneth and Doris Duncan, Down Under in 1951, writes: “About six years ago, I came back to Kidlington, where I was born in 1934.

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“For old times’ sake, I had a coffee at the Red Lion, where I chatted to a couple of elderly ladies about Kidlington in the old days.

“They mentioned that they had read stories about an elephant being buried somewhere in Kidlington, and I said my mother knew all about it.

She worked as a cashier at the zoo before she married my dad.

Oxford Mail:

“We used to play in the big concrete bunkers where the animals had been kept.

“My mother said the elephant was a big favourite, but got sick and died there just as the place was closing down.”

The zoo was officially opened in July 1931, on the site now occupied by Thames Valley Police headquarters.

It became a popular weekend haunt for families far and wide.

The site had earlier been a farmstead and the farm buildings had been converted into dens and cages for the animals.

There were also large areas for grazing.

Animals were given by the London, Berlin, Bristol and Dublin zoos and many individual collectors, although some expected at the opening did not arrive because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

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Apart from Rosie the elephant, the attractions included a camel, lion, jackal, two wolves, a family of baboons, monkeys, kangaroos, llamas, bears, rabbits, guinea pigs and many birds and fish.

On the first Sunday, more than 2,000 people flocked to the zoo. Admission was sixpence for adults and three pence for children. Buses were laid on from Oxford.

The zoo made national headlines when three wolves broke through wire netting and escaped, causing fear among the community.

Two were quickly shot dead, but the third vanished and eluded a large team of keepers, police and members of the public for three days.

It was finally cornered and shot in the grounds of Harefield House, Summertown, by Oxford Mail photographer JRV (Johnny) Johnson.

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The zoo closed in 1937 with the whole collection moving to Dudley Castle in the West Midlands.

But the three-metre high wire image of Rosie on Kidlington roundabout remains a constant reminder of its short life.

In 2018 the wire tribute, weighing almost a tonne, was lowered into place by a crane in front of a crowd of onlookers.

Pupils from Gosford Hill School were among them after taking part in workshops with the elephant’s artist Tony Davies

Next week in Memory Lane we will feature the story of what happened to Rosie.