The earliest record of a reptile being kept as a pet dates back nearly 400 years to 1625, when the
then Bishop of London, William Laud, acquired a spur-thighed tortoise which he kept at the Palace of
Fulham. When he became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, the tortoise moved with him to
Lambeth Palace where it outlived its owner by 108 years. Both suffered the same fate of having
their heads chopped off, one by a disgruntled employer in 1645, the other by a careless gardener in
1753. It is an interesting statistic that the first recorded reptile being kept as a pet lived for an
impressive 128 years and the shell of the tortoise still resides today at Lambeth Palace.