For 25 years, famous names would visit Maidstone to mark the reopening of the town’s zoo with a grand gala. Their host Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake opened the attraction in the grounds of his home at Cobtree Manor, at Sandling, on March 29, 1934. At the time, his estate included all the land that now comprises Cobtree Manor Park, Cobtree Golf Course and the Kent Life Museum, so there was plenty of room for his collection of lions, elephants, monkeys, and deer. He also had an armadillo, zebra, llamas, chimpanzees, a brown bear, polar bears, partridges, bison, Siberian wolves and a leopard named W…