A NEW exhibition has revealed the dramatic hunt for three wolves after they escaped from a popular zoo between Oxford and Kidlington.

Gosford Hill Farm, in Kidlington, was the home of Oxford Zoo between 1931 and 1937.

Zoo fans regularly caught special buses from the city centre to see star attractions, including Rosie the elephant and Hanno the lion.

Wolves were also housed at the zoo - and the escape of three of them in 1937 provided a drama now the subject of the exhibition called Zoo-mad at Oxfordshire.

Insp Barnett, of the Oxford City Police, shot the first wolf near the police houses in Banbury Road on the same day the wolves escaped.

Robert Collett, of Hampton Poyle, shot the second wolf the same evening at his father's farm.

But the third wolf survived for several days, after allegedly killing 13 sheep at a farm near North Oxford Golf Club.

It finally died when Oxford Mail photographer Johnny Johnson took up the chase, and shot it in Summertown.

He commandeered a bike from a cyclist on the A40 and rode up to the house where children were yelling "there's the wolf, there's the wolf", before shooting the animal dead from 30 yards.

Malcolm Graham, head of Oxfordshire County Council's Oxfordshire Studies, said: "We've recently acquired some Oxford Zoo postcards and these inspired me to find out more about this short-lived entertainment venue.

"Like so many aspects of local history, it's an intriguing story once you delve into it and where better to start than Oxfordshire Studies?"

The exhibition runs until Sunday, April 6, at Oxford Central Library's Oxfordshire Studies section, in the Westgate Centre.