Sheffield's Bear Pit

I'm still exploring our new area! One day this Spring I paid my first visit to the city of Sheffield. First of all to its Botanical Garden (which are absolutely excellent for anyone with an interest in plants):

It has one of the oldest glasshouses still standing (1830s) full of scary flowers like this triffid thing:

It has a fossilised tree-stump, discovered in a local coal seam:

It sells the strangest looking tea ever:

And it has a BEAR PIT!

This dates from Victorian times and no one seems terribly certain whether actual bear-baiting took place in there - it was probably just a zoo enclosure. The bears got moved out after a child fell in and was savaged, it's said.

From one of the oldest glasshouses then to a very modern one, and one of the largest in built here in the UK within the last century: the Winter Garden in the town centre:

No bears though...