The Lions Beneath The Petunias

A TRUE TALE

From Rowland Ward’s Wood Green Years

Lion engraving: British Museum

Carrying the torch of tradition

By the mid‑20th century, the great taxidermy empire of Rowland Ward – once the glamorous “Jungle” of Piccadilly – had settled into a quieter, more workmanlike rhythm in Crawley Road, Wood Green. The world had changed and so had the trade. Yet behind the modest façade, a team of skilled craftsmen still carried the torch for a tradition that had shaped Britain’s natural history landscape for generations.

This was a period when the taxidermy industry was no longer fuelled by grand imperial expeditions or aristocratic trophy rooms. Instead, it was kept alive by a mixture of museum commissions, private collectors, and the occasional odd request that only a place like Ward’s could handle with a straight face.

And then came the lions

Fresh lions – actual whole lions – were not the usual fare. Skins, yes. Crates from far‑flung places, certainly. But whole lions arriving at the back door of a London workshop in the 1950s or 1960’s? That was unusual even by Ward’s standards.

No one is entirely sure where they came from. A zoo? A circus? The records are silent, and the staff who handled them were far too busy getting on with the job to write down the details. But the lions were skinned, prepared, and parts of them transformed into taxidermy mounts with the same meticulous craftsmanship that had defined the Ward name for decades.

Then came the problem…..

What do you do with several headless lion carcasses in suburban Wood Green?

A Bright Idea

Someone – history has not preserved the name, perhaps mercifully – had an idea. The local council was constructing raised concrete flower beds. They were deep, they were filled with soil, and crucially, they were unattended at night.

And so, under cover of darkness, the lion carcasses (minus the skulls!) were quietly transported and buried beneath what would soon become Wood Green’s municipal flower displays.

Petunias above, Panthera Leo below.

It was a solution that was practical, discreet, and – at the time – entirely unremarkable to the men who carried it out. They had work to do, deadlines to meet, and there were no municipal waste service available for large carnivores (obviously….).

The story was passed along informally within the Ward circle, including to a young Jon Saggerson, who had connections with the firm. And then, as these things do, it faded into memory.

Twenty Years Later: A Mystery in the Flowerbeds

Fast forward to around 1990.

Wood Green’s Environmental Health Inspector was called to investigate a discovery in one of the town’s flower beds. Workers had unearthed mysterious bones – large bones. Very large bones. Definitely not your average urban wildlife.

The municipality was baffled. Speculation ran wild. Had there been an exotic pet owner? A Victorian collector? A crime? A cult? London has seen stranger things.

Mystery Eventually Solved : An Uncanny Co-incidence

Years later, by sheer coincidence, Jon Saggerson met the former Environmental Health Inspector in a new professional capacity. In conversation, she mentioned the strange case of mammal skeletons (minus the heads) found in Wood Green’s flower beds – still a mystery to her.

Jon, with the calm of someone who has been waiting decades for this moment, explained exactly how they got there.

She was astonished! The mystery that had puzzled so many people was suddenly, hilariously, mundanely and co-incidentally solved.

Why Stories Like This Matter

This tale is more than a quirky anecdote. It’s a window into a vanished world – the final decades of a legendary taxidermy firm, the practical realities of a craft that shaped museum collections, and the improvisational spirit of artisans working in a changing era.

It reminds us that history isn’t just grand narratives and official records. It’s also the odd, the improvised, the whispered, the nearly forgotten. And sometimes, it’s a lion buried under municipal Petunias.

One can’t help but wonder how many more stories like this lie beneath the surface – literally or figuratively – waiting to be rediscovered.

After all, the natural history landscape is full of surprises. Some of them just happen to be in flower beds.

Find out more about Jon Saggerson and his collection of Archive material from Rowland Ward