I found many interesting items at the Chetham Library Archive that tell us a lot of interesting information about Belle Vue.
These are some images advertising the zoo. Belle Vue originally opened as a Zoo with gardens until the 1920s when it was turned into a fairground. The zoo was a massive attraction, displaying lots of unnusual animals that people in the 1800s wouldn't otherwise get much chance of seeing. Unfortunately, the way they treated animals was without sentiment or care, often purchasing animals only for the season. This meant that animals had very short life span, the oldest being a chimp called Consul who lived to five years of age before dying and being replaced by Consul II.
Belle-Vue was also home to an elephant who was walked all the way from Edinburgh to Manchester to avoid it suffering cramped conditions in a train carriage.
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