Name: Natural History Museum
Address: Cromwell Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, UK
Telephone: 020 7942 5000
Rating: 4.7

Landmark museum of animals and natural phenomena, with hands-on exhibits and animatronic dinosaurs.

London Eye

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Buckingham Palace

Tower Bridge

The British Museum

Hyde Park

The Darwin Centre, a new addition to the museum, houses the UK Biodiversity lab and Entomology department. Moving 28 million specimens from the old building to the new was a massive undertaking.

Specimens Moved

The Zoology Spirit collection in the Darwin Centre boasts a 9-meter-long Giant Squid, preserved in a jar of alcohol.

Giant Squid

Like other publicly funded national museums in the UK, the Natural History Museum does not charge an admission fee.

Admission

The larvae of stag beetles are even more impressive than the adults, reaching up to 11 centimeters in length.

Stag Beetle Larvae

The iconic Alfred Waterhouse building, designed in the Victorian Gothic style, was completed and opened in 1881.

Building Opening

Male stag beetles use their large, antler-like mandibles to battle each other for access to females during breeding season.

Stag Beetle Battles

Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum in London distinguishes itself not only through its vast collection but also its architectural grandeur, a Romanesque terracotta palace designed by Alfred Waterhouse. Its iconic Hintze Hall, dominated by a suspended blue whale skeleton named Hope, replaced a Diplodocus cast, a subtle shift reflecting evolving scientific priorities. Beyond the dinosaurs, the museum houses an exceptional spirit collection, specimens preserved in alcohol, offering a glimpse into biodiversity rarely seen. The museum's commitment to cutting-edge research is evident in its molecular biology labs, where scientists analyze DNA to understand evolutionary relationships. A lesser-known treasure is the Tring Museum, an extension dedicated to zoology, showcasing the private collection of Lionel Walter Rothschild, a testament to Victorian-era scientific curiosity. The museum's extensive collection of meteorites, including fragments from Mars, provides invaluable insights into the solar system's formation.

Introduction

The Darwin Centre, a modern facility within the Natural History Museum, serves as both a storage space for specimens not on display and a working area for the museum's scientists. Public access to the scientific core of the Darwin Centre is facilitated through a visitor route that ascends through the Cocoon, offering views of the science and collection areas without disrupting research activities. This design blurs the boundaries between the public and the inner workings of scientific research, creating an interactive learning environment.

The second phase of the Darwin Centre completes the western portion of the Natural History Museum estate, linking existing buildings and enhancing circulation for staff and visitors. Inside the Cocoon, visitors can marvel at hundreds of museum specimens, including beetles, butterflies, plants, tarantulas, and historic herbaria. The Centre for UK Nature is located in the Cocoon atrium, with an adjoining courtyard for relaxation. The Darwin Centre allows visitors to observe scientific and research activities without interrupting the work in progress.

Darwin Centre

Alfred Waterhouse, renowned for his Victorian Gothic Revival style, significantly shaped the Natural History Museum, creating what founder Sir Richard Owen envisioned as a 'cathedral to nature'. Taking over after the initial architect's death, Waterhouse blended Gothic Revival and Romanesque architecture, incorporating living and extinct animals into the building's design, with extinct species in the east wing and living species in the west. His innovative approach used terracotta decoration extensively, making the museum the first building in England with facades completely clad in terracotta.

Waterhouse's original plans faced hurdles, including budget cuts and debates over location, leading to the omission of a large lecture theatre and a phased construction. Despite these challenges, the museum opened in 1881, marking an epoch in terracotta's architectural use. The design, influenced by German Romanesque Revival architecture, features a 750-foot main facade. The Library and Archives preserve Waterhouse's original architectural drawings, offering insights into his design process. Beyond the overall structure, Waterhouse meticulously designed architectural details, including column capitals depicting species of owl and bat, demonstrating his commitment to integrating the natural world into every element of the building.

Alfred Waterhouse Architecture

The Natural History Museum in London owes a significant part of its foundation to the vast collections of Sir Hans Sloane. Sloane, a physician and naturalist, amassed an immense and diverse collection throughout his life, encompassing natural history specimens, books, manuscripts, and various objects from around the world. Upon his death in 1753, the British government acquired his collection, which then formed the core of the British Museum's Department of Natural History, the precursor to today's Natural History Museum.

Sloane's collection included an estimated 15,250 geological specimens, with approximately 4,000 fossil vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants. While the original size of Sloane’s fossil collection is hard to estimate, around 150 specimens of fossils from the Sloane Collection have been recognized in the Palaeontology or Mineralogy department at the Natural History Museum. The museum also houses Sloane’s herbarium of dried, pressed specimens and his vegetable substances, which are botanical objects numbered and sealed in decorative glass boxes. The Sloane Herbarium, containing an estimated 120,000 plant specimens bound into 265 volumes, is the largest surviving botanical collection from the early modern period.

The Natural History Museum also holds a collection of Sloane’s books, manuscripts, and correspondence, including his handwritten accession registers. These registers detail the origin of specimens now found in the museum's Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology, and Zoology collections. The Sloane Herbarium's online database offers access to information, serving as a valuable resource for scientific and historical research.

Sir Hans Sloane Collection

Richard Owen, appointed Superintendent of the natural history departments of the British Museum in 1856, significantly shaped the Natural History Museum's destiny. Recognizing the limitations of the British Museum's space, Owen championed the creation of a separate building to house the burgeoning natural history collections. His vision was of a "cathedral to nature," a museum accessible to all, contrasting with the exclusive institutions of the time. Owen's influence extended to the museum's architecture, advocating for a design that could accommodate the display of large specimens, including whales, elephants, and dinosaurs.

Owen's vision materialized in the Natural History Museum's design. He requested that the building's terracotta tiles feature relief sculptures of flora and fauna, with extinct species displayed in the east wing and living species in the west wing. This separation reflected Owen's disagreement with Darwin's theory of natural selection. Although Alfred Waterhouse designed the museum, Owen's concept of what a museum should be is reflected in the final building. Owen's statue stood in the main hall until 2009, replaced by Darwin's, symbolizing the shifting perspectives in natural history.

Richard Owen's Vision

Hintze Hall, formerly the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum, features a ceiling adorned with 162 panels, 108 of which depict plants significant to the museum's history, the British Empire, or visitors, with the remaining panels showcasing stylized botanical paintings. The hall's design, conceived by architect Alfred Waterhouse, incorporates a Romanesque style with the intention of displaying an "index collection" of representative exhibits. Waterhouse successfully argued for the ceiling's decoration, including gilding, by emphasizing that it would not increase costs if done during the museum's construction.

Originally, the natural history collections were part of the British Museum, but the growing interest in natural history led to the creation of a separate museum. The hall's layout includes a grand staircase and balconies, posing a challenge for the ceiling's design due to varying light levels and viewing angles. To address this, Waterhouse chose to decorate the 170-foot ceiling with painted botanical panels.

In 2014, Central Hall was renamed Hintze Hall following a £5,000,000 donation. Conservation efforts have been ongoing to address deterioration, including plaster unkeying, paint peeling, and plasterwork cracking. A specialized hoist is used to monitor the condition of each panel through high-resolution photography. In 2016, further conservation work was carried out in conjunction with the replacement of the Diplodocus cast with a blue whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling.

Natural History Museum

Did You Know?

Specimens Moved

Giant Squid

Admission

Stag Beetle Larvae

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