HISTORIC CASTLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 21

HISTORIC CASTLE.

TURNED INTO A ZOO. SEA LIONS IN THE MOAT. LORD DUDLEY'S 'EXPERIMENT' The Earl of Dudley, red-earnationed, welcomed me at the great triple gateway of Dudley Castle and called for sonje more herrings (writes a "Daily Express" reporter). He has turned this frowning stronghold, which his family have held since before 1066 and all that, into a zoo. Gaudy parrots screech on the ruined battlements where men-at-arms kept watch and ward. Elephants will pad the inner bailey, carrying laughing children over the grassy lawns where Queen Elizabeth dallied with Lord Edward Dudley. Many strange things have happened behind these forbidding walls. But none more fantastic than happened to-day, when the third Earl of Dudley stood by his drawbridge and threw an inaugural herring to barking sea lions in his moat. It is a good zoo. Lord Dudley has taken immense trouble to ensure that the old castle, which once kept the whole countryside in thrall, should nfrt be tawdry. He said: "As the proud owner of a castle, yielding to no one in my affection and pride in it, I honestly believe this new venture will make the castle live again in the lives of the people. Kuggecl and unkempt as it was, I know the affection in which Dudley Castle is held by the people of the midlands. Now it will be an attraction as well as a landmark in history." Clambering about the mighty earthworks thrown up by William Fitz Ansculph, one of the Conqueror's men, we saw lions sun themselves lazily and heard the snarl of a tiger wanting dinner. Polar bears begged cleverly in that ravine where Dudley's men once poured boiling pitch on rebel armies. The monkey house is a monkey paradise, with tall trees to climb, ropes to swing on, and even a stainless steel mirror, To-day, as they did so often In days past, the Mayor and burgesses of Dudley Town, with the gentry and peasantry from the Black Country, came again to this feudal castle to .yreet their = lord. But never befon have they helped to throw herrivpt