Saturday 1 March 2014

Three men - riding llamas


Three men hiking up a mountain with a telescope proved an impossible task so my offering has to be three men on llamas.

The card itself was sent to me from France three years ago with the only information on the reverse being "Hommes et lamas" from Editions du DĂ©sastre, Paris.  I spent quite some time trying to find out where in France these llamas might have been found without any success.

It wasn't until I remembered the clever Google search by image that I found an exact match, and via Getty Images I realised that the image originated in England.  Not at Ampthill House Llama Farm as suggested by Getty Images but at Wingfield Zoo, Ampthill also known as Ampthill Zoo.  There are further images of the same type at Ampthill Images website.

Apparently it was a private zoo maintained by Mr Wingfield from the late 1800s until after World War I.  He had all sorts of animals other than llamas roaming freely: camels, bison, pigs ostriches, all great attractions, especially as rides.  The animals were gradually transferred to Whipsnade Zoo (created 1926) when the estate zoo was gradually run down.

Further information about the town of Ampthill in Bedfordshire, including Ampthill House and the zoo, can be found on the Towns in Britain site.

This is a post for Sepia Saturday.  A click on the button will take you to the site.

http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.co.uk/

11 comments:

  1. Now this is just too cute!

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  2. Three hats (from last time), three men, & three llamas which are known to be good pack & riding animals in the mountains. Good post! And yes, cute too. :))

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  3. I didn't realize you could ride a llama.

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  4. They do ostrich rides at Oudtshoorn in South Africa (or at least they used to when I was there 30 years ago), but I've not seen llamas being ridden.

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  5. The funniest postcard I saw this week! I hope one day I will get one also :)

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  6. Fun photo. I wonder whether there are still places to ride llamas.

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  7. An unexpected funny photo and a neat spin on the theme. However I don't think Llamas are ridden in their native lands, but only used for carrying packs.

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  8. So funny! It doesn't look too comfortable.

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  9. I bet they only have one gait...bouncy! Poor guys...I can see that that didn't exactly catch on.

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