Shepreth Wildlife Park — Attraction in South Cambridgeshire

I just want to start this review by saying that I completely understand how much money goes into running a zoo or animal sanctuary and how you have to try your best with the space you have to create an environment as natural as possible for the animals where you can, including enrichment (i have worked with exotic animals for a long time myself).

We visited yesterday, the 20th of Augusy 2025. The carpark was nearing full capacity but once inside it was relatively quiet. It cost us £45 for 2 adults and a 2.5 year old. Our first stop were the toilets and café after our journey. The toilets unfortunately were lacking - there was a handful of outdoor toilet stalls with poorly locking doors, no toilet paper in most of the stalls and they smelled pretty bad. I know public toilets have a smell, it's natural but they were very reminiscent of a 90s school toilet block. Im wondering if there are plans to do the toilets up soon? There was a large queue of people waiting to go and use them but it could have been halved as some of the stalls were actually empty but the locks were stuck on engaged and not opening properly causing confusion.

The café was very small inside with only one person serving and an extremely large queue. I opted to get my daughter a drink from.the fridge but they were all luke warm and not cold at all, so I left. It felt very dated in there.

The zoo itself is very small, we actually walked around twice in an hour and a half. I used to visit Shepreth alot in my childhood so I had good memories of the place but it felt like it hadn't been redecorated or cleaned since my childhood when I was walking around and although on the surface it was nostalgia, upon passing that feeling, it was evident there was alot of improvement to be done to attract visitors and help with a possible cash flow problem? I felt the animals had adequate enclosures minus the tigers enclosure which I felt could have been bigger but that cant be helped at all with the space available. There were alot of volunteer keepers around, all very young but enjoying their work there.

I really really want to love Shepreth as much as I used to but unfortunately I left feeling disappointed. I feel like the wildlife park has so much potential and could be an amazing place to visit if it was a little tidier and updated. They had basic sign posts around the park for animal exhibits but the map itself and around the park didnt have actual names of animals available, just vague silhouettes. I feel an updated map and clearer signposting would make a world of difference. I would love to visit again in the future and see if things have changed, but i'll leave it a couple of years before I do this. I have hope for Shepreths future if they have plans for revival...

We had such a lovely time here. There's something special about this place, as it's a rare attraction that isn't massively commercialised and trying to empty your wallet at every turn.

Firstly, tickets are a lot less expensive than other zoos and wildlife parks, and are well worth the money. £13.50 for an adult. I'm sure people would be willing to pay more.

The park is small and unassuming, but very well maintained.

There is a large outdoor play area and a wheelchair accessible play area for disabled kids. There is also an indoor soft play area.

The park is wheelchair accessible throughout and I didn't run into any accessibility issues at all. Obviously there were some high up viewing decks only accessible by stairs but this is expected.

The toilets aren't exactly glamorous but they were clean and fit for purpose.

There's a small cafe with a small selection of sandwiches, paninis, and vegan Hotdogs which was a pleasant surprise! Food was inexpensive, a large vegan Hotdog was £4.50. There were also several vegan ice creams in the ice cream freezer and a cold water fountain for refilling bottles.

Now the important part, the animals! There is a reptile house, a nocturnal animal area including a free flying bats walk-through, a few big cats, birds of prey, rainforest animals, primates, and more. My personal favourites are armadillos, which we were so fortunate to see extremely up close as a friendly keeper was more than happy to show us and tell us all about them. The keepers were so friendly and passionate about what they do. There is some great conservation going on with their breeding programmes, and plans for animals to be introduced into the wild to repopulate. I had an 'Aardvark Experience' voucher gifted to me and this was so great! 30 minutes of one on one with a really enthusiastic and knowledgeable keeper, I believe their name was TK, bottle feeding and hand feeding the aardvarks and learning more about them. I can't recommend this enough, a really great experience but also a great way to contribute money to the zoo so that they can keep doing...

This is the most lovely wildlife park! I bought the Capybara experience for my sister for Christmas and we only just found time to go. The day was a little overcast and at times, drizzly, but that didn’t dampen the experience. The park seems small (I’m more used to London Zoo), but there’s so much to see and do. We went during the week on a Wednesday and it was quiet.

It was a rare day when I didn’t have my children with me, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time reading the descriptions of the animals and chatting to the keepers. There’s talks throughout the day which I highly recommend going to. I really enjoyed the one for the tigers and lemurs. It makes it much more of an interesting experience especially as the keepers give you lots of little personal details about the animals. I learnt so much more about how breeding programmes run, and safety protocol, and how otters are cute but actually can’t be trusted with fingers 😂 - I’d never have gotten all that information from bigger, more impersonal zoos.

My favourite animals were the otters who are just super cute, the aardvarks who are super weird looking in real life and the mother and daughter tigers who were absolutely stunning. What really stands out though is how well the animals are cared for.

There’s a playground and indoor soft play for children which I’m sure my 7,5 and 1 year old would love.

My sister did the capybara experience and had a brilliant time. She fed them bamboo and even got to stroke them.

Such a wonderful day...