Share your memories of Causeway Safari Park for upcoming exhibition at Ballymoney Museum
Fri, March 01, 2024
Do you have fond memories of Causeway Safari Park? Then Council’s Muesum Services would love to hear from you!
Situated at Benvarden, outside Ballymoney, the venue was once one of the biggest attractions on the Causeway Coast before its closure in 1997, eventually becoming what is now Benvarden Animal Rescue Kennels.
To remember these safari park days, Museum Services is working on a new exhibition coming to Ballymoney Museum this August.
If you have any photographs, souvenirs, stories or even footage from your time visiting or indeed working at the safari park, please get in touch.
Developed in 1970 by Pat Stephenson, visitors to the park had the unique experience of travelling in their own cars and buses into the main reserve where lions, tigers and baboons were kept. Here, many visitors report of how their tyres were slashed by the lions and wipers, number plates and wing mirrors pulled off by the baboons!
But these were not the only animals visitors could see at the park. Reported at the time of its brief closure in 1986, the park had 34 lions, 6 tigers, 3 chimps, 22 monkeys, 2 leopards, 2 bears, zebras, camels, llamas, ponies and donkeys.
As well as the animals, the park had many other attractions for all the family. There was the American super slide, the moonwalk, kiddy rides, bumper cars, trains, the Free Flight Aviary, café and an ice cream parlour. There was also the curio shop where you could get your photo taken with a lion cub and have it made into a badge.
To get in touch with Museum Services, you can message our Facebook page Causeway Coast and Glens Museum Services, email museums@causewaycoastandglens.gov.uk or phone 028 276 60230.
