A bronze lion statue in front of Chewton Glen hotel

Born Free Forever

JULY 2025: OUR LION SCULPTURES ARE NOW ALL SOLD!

We’re delighted to announce that our ‘Born Free Forever’ pride have now all gone to their new homes.

Thank you to everyone who supported our exhibition during it’s UK tour and residency at Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa.

Read more about the Born Free Forever journey below…

BORN FREE’S PRIDE ARRIVE AT CHEWTON GLEN

Now that Born Free’s bronze lions have completed their ‘safari for survival’ around the UK, we are pleased to say that they have settled in at their new home – Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa, in Hampshire.

Visitors to the luxury hotel can seek out each member of the pride in their New Forest habitat and learn about each of their special individual stories.

Chewton Glen will be offering a special Born Free residential package, available to book now, which includes bed and breakfast accommodation, a map of the sculpture trail, and a pre-dinner ‘Elsa’s Joy’ cocktail, created specially in honour of Elsa the lioness.

Guests booking an overnight stay with this package will be able to add to their own pride, with Born Free lion adoption packs available from Chewton Glen’s Boutique.

BORN FREE LIONS COMPLETE THEIR SAFARI FOR SURVIVAL!

Running throughout 2022, Born Free’s ‘Year of the Lion’, the Born Free Forever life-size bronze lions honoured what would have been the 100th birthday year of Bill Travers MBE, our fearless Co-Founder.

Born Free Forever is the largest lion sculpture exhibition of its type in the UK, and over the course of 2022 took up residence at locations across the UK as a celebration of Elsa the lioness – our charity’s original inspiration and a potent symbol of hope. The exhibition’s stunning bronze centrepiece features Elsa standing on top of a vintage 4×4 surrounded by cubs, capturing the essence of the iconic classic 1966 film Born Free, starring our charity’s Co-Founders Dame Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers MBE, and telling Elsa’s true story.

A montage of photos of the Born Free Forever bronze statues and archive photos of Virginia McKenna and a lion

The moving installation features lions and cubs cast in bronze. Each lion represents an issue faced by these iconic creatures and has a special affinity with Born Free; from Christian, the cub purchased from Harrods and successfully returned to the wild, to Makena, the Kenyan lioness living in the Born Free-protected Meru National Park, now with cubs of her own.