Elephants on the Roaches!

Sir Philip Lee Brocklehurst was an enthusiastic adventurer. He had even intended to accompany Sir Ernest Shackleton aboard the “Endurance” on the Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914. However, he gained a commission in the Life Guards and sailed to Flanders instead. He survived the “Great War” and returned safely to Swythamley. During the 1930s his exploits included travelling by car with his wife across the Sahara. He fought in World War 2 as well and managed the Swythamley Estate until his death in 1975.

Henry Courtney Brocklehurst, who bears a striking resemblance to his older brother, also joined the British army in India in 1908 at twenty years old. In 1912 he accompanied his brother to the Arctic and, similarly, was meant to join Shackleton’s expedition but was recalled to his unit at the outbreak of World War 1. He served in both the cavalry and the Royal Flying Corps, which later became the RAF. He left the army as Lieutenant Colonel Brocklehurst with three medals.

After the war, and unencumbered by the responsibility of managing the estate, Courtney set about travelling. This led to his appointment as Game Warden of Sudan in 1922. His role was in the conservation of local game. He also accompanied wealthy visitors on big game hunts. Guests included the likes of the Duke and Duchess of York, the future King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.

While Game Warden in Sudan, Courtney founded the Khartoum Zoo and supplied birds to London Zoo and specimens to the Natural History Museum. He was awarded the Zoological Society’s medal for this work. He also wrote a book titled "Game Animals of the Sudan: Their Habits and Distribution" - which was considered an important work for over two decades.

In 1935 Courtney travelled to China to hunt the rare giant panda. In The Sunday Morning Melbourne Herald, on the 22nd August 1935, it reads, “This animal, so rare that only three or four have ever been bagged...live in almost inaccessible mountain country near the Tibetan border.” 

After a difficult journey, overland and by river, Courtney pushed on through deep snow with the local guides and hunters he had engaged. Courtney told the reporter “One day in April, after several weeks wandering, I heard a panda roar.” The next morning the spoor of the animal was found, Courtney then “took careful aim and killed him instantaneously with one bullet in the neck from fifteen feet away.”

The photograph shown on the left is of the same giant panda on display in West Park Museum in Macclesfield. Today it may be difficult to reconcile this narrative with the Courtney Brocklehurst he was to become... 

After that brief sojourn into the history of the Brocklehurst family, we can begin to return our focus to the pond and dam.

When Courtney returned to England he lived at Roaches House, situated by the Roaches (hence the name) and near Hen Cloud and the current Field House, with its pond and dam. It lies towards the southern end of Swythamley Estate, and it became the site of a zoo created by Courtney. It is possible that the idea to establish a zoo on the Estate developed sometime in the 1930s once Courtney was back in the UK. He planted trees as protection for the animals and built shelters that would not spoil the views.

Our volunteers suspected that the pond and dam were to be associated with this zoo.

And they were right!

The photo below, taken in the 1940s, shows some animals next to Field House when it was still just a barn. Just behind the animals, lying in front of the trees is the pond.

Before taking delivery of any animals Courtney twice drove to Paignton in Devon to see the founder of a private zoo, Herbert Whitley. This zoo had no cages, animals were free to roam with an emphasis on conservation and preservation. It still operates today.

And after conversations with Whipsnade Zoo, they agreed Courtney could have animals on breeding terms. The first assignment arrived on June 11th, 1936. We know from Courtney’s diary, (courtesy of Alan Weeks of Swthamley Historical Society), that he went to the railway station in Ashbourne to meet them.

The initial assignment included:

• Two wallabies

• Two Barbary sheep

• Two nilgai

• Two blackbuck

• Two Shetland ponies

• Two llamas

• Two peafowl

In his diary, Courtney notes that most animals seemed to settle in but after a couple of weeks the female nilgai died, possibly from heart failure. A baby llama was born in August and one of the wallabies escaped on the 8th of October. Unable to find it himself, Courtney advertised a reward. The animal was brought back unharmed three days later from somewhere near Sandbach. Courtney left for China in early December and received news in May 1937 that the baby llama and its mother had died, along with two baby blackbuck, several fallow deer fawns, and the other nilgai. Conditions were not ideal on the windswept Roaches.

During 1938 he received a new supply of animals. This included:

• Junglefowl

• Black swans

• Mouflons

• Hog deer

• Emu

The Spring saw the arrival of marmots and yaks too. The yaks in particular were known for their mischief. Locals remember them trying to tip over vehicles with drivers still inside! Courtney records in his diary “Had a party for the locals, about 100 came…..the yak refused to go but was very docile.”

The arrows in the image show the pond. Yaks sheltered in the building in front.

We are fortunate to have eyewitness accounts from people living at Roaches Hall after World War 2, so there is no doubt about the origin of the pond. Siblings Andrea and Adrian recall their mother explaining how the pond was built for Courtney's animals. They even remember seeing a herd of deer drinking there. Janet who lived at Upper Hulme as a child, recalls her father speaking about how the emu would peck the buttons on his coat at the annual Christmas party given for the village children.

In October there was an arrival of more animals from Whipsnade, including:

• Tahr

• Lechwe

• Caucasian ibex

A reporter from The Leek Post was impressed that animals could wander at will across the estate. He described it as 'Zoological Gardens', where herbivore animals are safe from carnivores. Other visitors came to see the animals but Courtney felt obliged to protest in the press about the public throwing stones.

November and December 1938 saw the deaths of the bighorn, nilgai, hog deer, a yak and a Barbary ram. Courtney feared they had been poisoned but the causes of death were found to be natural. The animals were replaced with five oorial, a kind of Himalayan sheep that may have fared better with the cold winters on the Roaches. In February 1939, Courtney wrote “Very cold, we have only lost two animals this winter out of fifty.”

There are no more entries in Courtney’s diary regarding the zoo.

With the outbreak of World War 2, Courtney volunteered his services in London and by 1940 was working for MI5. He later went to Burma and commanded a Special Services Detachment of Commandoes. He was killed on active service in June 1942 aged 54 years.

After the war ended and without Courtney to guide it, the zoo project faded away. The surviving animals would have been cared for by the gamekeepers where necessary. In the words of Alan Weeks “The animals, it was said, escaped because the fences were not maintained – though I have recently been told by the granddaughter of the gamekeeper that he was told by Sir Philip to let them escape.” Several yak survived well into the 1950s. Andrea, from Roaches House (born 1945), says that as a child she remembers seeing deer, ibex, llamas, and geese. The wallabies established themselves and bred successfully for many years, the last one was said to have been sighted as late as 2014! 

On the Roaches, a memorial plaque has been fixed to an outcrop of gritstone. It reads:

“LT COL. HENRY COURTNEY BROCKLEHURST 10TH ROYAL HUSSARS AAND PILOT IN THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS 1916-1918. GAME WARDEN OF THE SUDAN. BORN AT SWYTHAMLEY MAY 27TH 1888. KILLED ON ACTIVE SERVICE IN BURMA ON COMMANDO 1942.

“Horses he loved and laughter, the sun, with spaces and the open air.

The trust of all dumb living things he won and never knew the luck too good to share.

His were the simple heart and open hand and honest faults he never strove to hide.

Problems of life he could not understand but as a man would wish to die, he died.

Now though he will not ride with us again, his merry spirit seems our comrade yet,

Freed from the power of weariness and pain, forbidding us to mourn or to forget.

Erected by his devoted brother 1949.”

Courtney Brocklehurst was a man of vision and a conservationist, of sorts, before his time. He may well have maintained his “Zoological Garden” had the war not intervened. We may even have had elephants on the Roaches!