Monument record MDR14961 - Hill Top House, Ashover

The private residence of Hill Top House was for 17 years the headquarters of a fauna reserve known as ‘Pan’s Garden’ run by the Keeling family. The zoo, founded in 1954 and opened to the public in Easter 1955 boasted some 250 specimens. It was the home of ‘the Sugar Puffs Bear’, who, not content with the attention he enjoyed as the star of a cereal commercial broke from his cage one year. He was recaptured after being spotted on the loose by a local farmhand. The zoo was closed at the end of 1971. (1)