Pudsey Park: Cafe inside glasshouse at popular Yorkshire park opens - with bigger plans for the future

Residents had “fond memories” of exploring tropical ecosystems in the building in Pudsey Park before it was closed by Leeds Council in 2020.

A section of the glasshouse facility has now reopened as the Really Wild Café, the first stage of plans to transform it into a zoo and educational facility.

Matthew Shaw, a director of Junglebox, the company behind the project, said: “It’s terrific to finally reach this point. With doors open, it feels like a real beginning.”

Since starting work in March, Mr Shaw, 41 – alongside co-directors Chris Knowles, 42, and Andrew Stephenson, 61 – has cleared the glasshouse of the most overgrown plants, which had been left since it was last open to visitors, and built a snaking fish tank in one half of the space.

According to Mr Shaw the 42-metre tank could – accidentally – be the longest of its kind in the world, beating an “aquarium aquascape” in Lisbon, Portugal by two metres.

He told The Yorkshire Post people have been pleased to see the glasshouse brought back into use.

“The people of Pudsey have been absolutely wonderful,” he said, even though key elements, including the fish tank, are still in progress.

“Chris is on his way to Manchester Airport now to pick up £500 worth of fish from Colombia,” he said.

Leeds councillor Dawn Seary, who campaigned to keep the glasshouse open in 2019, helped convince the council to work with the new business.

She called it a “no brainer,” as both a “building that’s been saved” and a project which could “put Pudsey on the map”.

The café and zoo have also received support online. One Instagram video of the fish tank being built was seen nearly 400,000 times, attention which has left Mr Shaw “really blown away”.

The aim is to create a small zoo alongside the café, which will open in September with a focus on education, allowing school groups to be immersed in Central American rainforest-themed flora and fauna.

Mr Shaw, who finished his job as a teacher in Leeds on Tuesday (Jul 21), said he hopes to put education “at the fore”, building on the area’s “rich pedigree” of science education and instilling an appreciation for biodiversity at a young age.

He was, however, keen to note that the zoo will be open to all, with ‘VIP’ tickets already on sale as part of a crowdfunding campaign to help the project finish its work.

When the zoo opens, the team hopes it will become part of a new wave of attractions in the UK, offering smaller and more interactive exhibits which also, they say, help the animals “live out their best lives”.

The Really Wild Zoo can be found on Crowdfunder at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-really-wild-zoo-pudsey-park