Natural History Museum, London facts for kids
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Front façade of the museum in January 2006
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| Established | 1881 |
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| Location | Kensington & Chelsea, London, SW7 United Kingdom |
| Type | Natural history museum |
| Visitors | 4,654,608 in 2023 |
| Public transit access |
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The Natural History Museum in London is a super cool place that shows off tons of amazing things from the natural world. It's one of three big museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, right next to the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The main entrance of the Natural History Museum is on Cromwell Road.
This museum is home to about 80 million items! These include plants, insects, minerals, fossils, and animals. It's also a major center for scientists who study how living things are classified, identified, and protected. Many of the items are very old and important, like specimens collected by the famous scientist Charles Darwin. The museum is especially known for its awesome dinosaur skeletons and its beautiful building, which some people call a cathedral of nature. For a long time, a huge Diplodocus dinosaur cast named Dippy was in the main hall. In 2017, it was replaced by the skeleton of a giant blue whale hanging from the ceiling! The museum also has a huge library full of books and artwork related to natural history.
Even though everyone calls it the Natural History Museum, its official name was British Museum (Natural History) until 1992. It started as part of the British Museum. The amazing building you see today was designed by Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1881. Later, another museum, the Geological Museum, joined it. A newer part, the Darwin Centre, was built to store the valuable collections in a modern way. Just like other big national museums in the UK, you don't have to pay to get into the Natural History Museum.
Contents
History of the Museum
How the Museum Started
The museum's collection began with a doctor named Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). He had a huge collection of dried plants, animal skeletons, and even human skeletons. He sold his collection to the British government for a very low price. At first, these items were kept in Montagu House, Bloomsbury, which was also home to the British Museum.
Over time, many of Sloane's original items disappeared. Some were sold, and others were simply thrown away because they were decaying. It was hard to keep the collections in good shape back then. In 1833, a report said that none of the 5,500 insects from Sloane's collection were left! The museum had trouble taking care of its specimens.
Things started to get much better when a scientist named Richard Owen became the Superintendent of the natural history departments in 1856. He made many important changes. Thanks to Owen, the Natural History Museum became a place for everyone to enjoy and learn from.
Designing the Amazing Building
Richard Owen realized that the natural history collections needed a lot more space. This meant building a completely separate museum. Land was bought in South Kensington, and in 1864, a competition was held to design the new building. The winning design came from Captain Francis Fowke, but he sadly passed away soon after.
Another architect, Alfred Waterhouse, took over the project. He changed the plans quite a bit and designed the museum's unique Romanesque style. This style was inspired by his travels in Europe. The building work started in 1873 and finished in 1880. The new museum officially opened its doors in 1881.
Both the inside and outside of the Waterhouse building use lots of special architectural terracotta tiles. These tiles were great for protecting the building from the smoky air of Victorian London. The tiles are covered in amazing sculptures of plants and animals. The animals on the west side are living species, while those on the east side are extinct species. This was Owen's idea, showing the difference between animals of today and those from the past.
Becoming Independent
Even after the new building opened, the Natural History Museum was still legally a part of the British Museum. Many scientists, including Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, wanted the museum to be completely independent. They argued about this for almost 100 years!
Finally, in 1963, a new law made the British Museum (Natural History) an independent museum with its own leaders. However, it still kept its old name. It wasn't until 1989 that the museum started calling itself the Natural History Museum in its advertising. The official name finally changed in 1992 to the Natural History Museum.
Joining the Geological Museum
In 1985, the Natural History Museum joined with the Geological Museum, which was right next door. The Geological Museum was famous for its cool exhibits, like a working volcano model and an earthquake machine! Its galleries were completely rebuilt and reopened in 1996 as The Earth Galleries. The other exhibits in the Waterhouse building were then called The Life Galleries.
The Darwin Centre
The Darwin Centre is a big, modern addition to the museum, named after Charles Darwin. It was built to store millions of preserved specimens and to provide new workspaces for the museum's scientists. It also offers new ways for visitors to learn.
The first part of the Darwin Centre opened in 2002. It holds the "spirit collections"—animals preserved in alcohol. The second part, which looks like a giant, eight-story cocoon, opened in 2009. This part houses the insect and plant collections, which are the "dry collections." You can even book tours to see some of these non-exhibited items! One of the most famous creatures here is Archie, a huge 8.62-meter-long giant squid.
The Attenborough Studio
The museum also has a special multimedia studio called the Attenborough Studio, named after the famous broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. This studio works with the BBC Natural History Unit to put on educational events. They have regular talks and demonstrations, including free "Nature Live" talks where you can learn about science and conservation.
Major Specimens and Exhibits
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One of the most famous exhibits for many years was "Dippy"—a 105-foot-long replica of a Diplodocus carnegii skeleton. This cast was a gift from a rich businessman named Andrew Carnegie. He paid for copies to be made for museums all over the world, making Dippy the most-seen dinosaur skeleton! Dippy was a symbol of the museum and appeared in many cartoons. After 112 years, Dippy was removed in early 2017. It then went on a tour of other museums in Britain.
Replacing Dippy in the main hall is "Hope", a huge blue whale skeleton. This skeleton is about 82 feet long and weighs 4.5 tonnes! It had been stored for 42 years after the whale got stuck in Ireland in 1891. It was first displayed in the Mammals (blue whale model) gallery. Now, it hangs proudly in the museum's main Hintze Hall. The process of moving Dippy out and putting Hope in was even shown in a TV special called Horizon: Dippy and the Whale.
The Darwin Centre is home to Archie, a giant squid that is 8.62 meters long. It was caught in a fishing net near the Falkland Islands in 2004. Archie is kept in a huge tank in the basement of the Darwin Centre. Since there are not many complete giant squid specimens, Archie was preserved in a special mixture of chemicals.
The museum also has the bones of the "River Thames whale". This was a northern bottlenose whale that got lost and swam into the River Thames in 2006. While mostly used for research, it's another interesting part of the collection.
Museum Zones and Galleries
The museum is divided into four main areas, or zones, each with a different color and theme.
Red Zone
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This zone is all about the changing history of our Earth. You can enter it from Exhibition Road.
- Earth Hall (where you can see a Stegosaurus skeleton)
- Human Evolution
- Earth's Treasury (showing rocks, minerals, and gemstones)
- Lasting Impressions (a gallery where you can touch some specimens)
- Restless Surface
- From the Beginning
- Volcanoes and Earthquakes
- The Waterhouse Gallery (for special temporary exhibitions)
Green Zone
You can get to this zone from the main Cromwell Road entrance, through the Hintze Hall. It focuses on how life on Earth has changed over time.
- Birds
- Creepy Crawlies
- Fossil Way (with marine reptiles and a giant sloth)
- Hintze Hall (the main hall with the blue whale skeleton and a giant tree slice)
- Minerals
- The Vault
- Fossils from the UK
- Investigate (a hands-on area)
- East Pavilion (for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition)
Blue Zone
This zone is to the left of the Hintze Hall and explores all the different kinds of life on our planet.
- Dinosaurs
- Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles
- Human Biology
- Images of Nature
- The Jerwood Gallery (for temporary exhibitions)
- Marine Invertebrates
- Mammals
- Mammals Hall (where you can see a model of a blue whale)
- Treasures in the Cadogan Gallery
Orange Zone
This zone lets you see scientists at work and offers places to relax. You can reach it from Queens Gate.
- Wildlife Garden
- Darwin Centre
- Zoology Spirit Building
Highlights of the Collection
The museum has many incredible items, including:
- A huge iron meteorite from Argentina, weighing 635 kg.
- Pieces of the Nakhla meteorite from Egypt, which suggest there was water on Mars.
- The Latrobe nugget, one of the biggest clusters of gold crystals.
- A Moon rock sample collected by Apollo 16 astronauts in 1972.
- The Ostro Stone, a perfect blue topaz gemstone weighing about 2 kg, the largest of its kind.
- The Aurora Pyramid of Hope, a collection of 296 natural diamonds in many colors.
- The first ichthyosaur material found by Mary Anning.
- The first complete skeleton of a plesiosaur ever discovered.
- A cast of a huge Rhomaleosaurus skeleton.
- The first Iguanodon teeth ever found.
- The most complete Stegosaurus fossil skeleton ever discovered (nicknamed Sophie).
- A large skull of a Triceratops.
- A skeleton of Baryonyx.
- A full-sized moving model of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
- The first specimen of Archaeopteryx ever found, one of the oldest known birds.
- A rare dodo skeleton, put together from bones over 1,000 years old.
- The only surviving Great Auk specimen from the British Isles.
- A complete skeleton of an American mastodon.
- The Broken Hill skull, an ancient human skull found in Zambia.
- Two Neanderthal skulls found in Gibraltar.
- A cross-section of a 1,300-year-old giant sequoia tree.
- A rare copy of The Birds of America by John James Audubon.
- A rare first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
Learning and Research
The museum offers many educational programs for students and the public. For example, they have hands-on workshops for school students to learn about geology. The museum also helped make the Jurassic Coast in England a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In 2005, the museum started having actors dress up as famous scientists like Carl Linnaeus and Mary Anning. They walk around the museum and tell stories about their lives and discoveries, which is a fun way to learn!
In 2010, a six-part TV show called Museum of Life was filmed at the museum. It showed the history and behind-the-scenes work of the museum. Since 2001, it has been free to enter the Natural History Museum for most exhibits. However, some special temporary shows might have a fee.
The Natural History Museum uses its huge collections and expert scientists to answer big questions about life and Earth. They study things like how living things are related, how they evolve, and how to protect them.
Getting There
| Service | Station/Stop | Lines/Routes served |
|---|---|---|
London Buses  |
Kensington Museums  |
360 |
| Victoria & Albert Museum |
14, 74, 414, C1 | |
London Underground  |
South Kensington |    |
The closest London Underground station is South Kensington. There's even a tunnel from the station that leads right to the entrances of the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and Victoria and Albert Museum.
Natural History Museum at Tring
The Natural History Museum also has another location in Tring, Hertfordshire. This museum was built by a collector named Lionel Walter Rothschild. The Natural History Museum took it over in 1938. In 2007, it was renamed the Natural History Museum at Tring.
Images for kids
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A robot for kids.
See also
- James John Joicey
- Keeper of Entomology, Natural History Museum
- Sophie the Stegosaurus
- Category:Employees of the Natural History Museum, London
