LION IN MEDIEVAL BRITAIN?

Charlotte Sophia Burne, in a work published in 1883, mentions a wooden carving of a knight with a dead lion at his feet in Berrington Church (Shrewsbury).  A legend concerning this armoured worthy was his name was Owd Scriven o' Brampton had he had been attacked by the lion, which he killed, as he meandered through the English countryside.  Whether the legend has any foundation I cannot tell.  One wonders how a lion might have arrived in Britain in the Middle Ages, though it is not impossible it escaped from the collection of some nobleman.  On the other hand, the knight's attacker may have been a somewhat more modest beast, like a wildcat or a lynx, which became exaggerated in the telling.