Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens

General information

Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens opened in May 2011.

The zoo is part of Northumberland College's Kirkley Hall Campus and was set up as an educational training facility for the college’s Animal Care students as well as becoming a tourist attraction on weekends and school holidays.

Since opening the zoo has grown massively and now boasts over 200 species of animals, reptiles and birds including alpacas, ring tailed lemurs, marmosets, capybara, emus, wallabies, kookaburras, snakes, lizards and smaller domestic animals in our petting barn.

Visitors can meet our zookeepers, enjoy various animal encounters and even have the opportunity to hold reptiles and domestic animals.

In 2013 the zoo was awarded a prestigious TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence award for consistently achieving outstanding traveller reviews on TripAdvisor.

The zoo has a full zoo licence, is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums and has links with various partners to actively promote the conservation of animals including the Wildlife Trusts, Red Squirrels Northern England and Newcastle University.

As well as being a great family day out the aim of our dedicated zoo team is to educate people about the various species of animals we have and their behaviours and habitats.