The Natural History Museum
OK so I'm sure there are probably wilder and crazier places to go but lets face it none of them are going to have brains in jars. The Natural History Museum 'a true temple of nature' is one of my favourite places in London, before you even get into the building, you are struck by its awesome architecture, and you can feel the history positively pulsating from it.
The NHM first opened its doors in 1881 but the building owes its breathtaking existence to the vision of Richard Owen. Richard took his inspiration from the basalt columns at Fingal's Cave in western Scotland and the building is one of Britain 's most striking examples of Romanesque architecture.
I'm a big advocate for looking up, people don't do it enough and The Natural History Museum is definitely somewhere you should. As you walk up to the building you will notice a series of statues, gargoyles, Great Paleotheriums, Pterodactyls, lions and cobras adorning the outside.
Look up when you enter the busy central hall and you'll find a wonderful spread of ceiling panels. As well as the arches being covered in birds and foliage, the 'flying stair case' contains elaborate designs including a octopus stencil, and if you have the time to count there are 78 monkeys cheekily climbing three of the arches.
But let's not forget the museum is really all about the collection, which is the largest and most important natural history collection in the world. There are over 70 million specimens ranging from microscopic slides to mammoth skeletons. The main attraction for many is the dinosaurs, the star of which is undisputable Dippy the Diplodocus. From my personal experience, the best place to view this gentle giant is from the second floor by the fossil of the 1,300 year old giant sequoia (which is huge!), From here you can look down and get a real perspective of just how big this animal was. You can also see the erm, 'terrifying' animatronic T.Rex, although it's not really so scary (unless you are under 8), but the dino exhibition is worth a look/giggle. As you are leaving check out the baby dinosaur that is lying by the exit, people often just wonder past it but if you have a good look you can see it breathing.
There's so much to see at the museum, fish, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, human biology, mammals, primates, fossils, ecology, plants, creepy crawlies and birds, and that's just from the life galleries. I'm not even going to get started on the Earth Galleries. There main attractions include the life size model of a Blue Whale, a live colony of leaf cutting ants (which are mesmerising), a gigantic crocodile skull that's over 71 million years old, the Giant Sloth skeleton and the aforementioned giant sequoia tree.
It's easy to think of the museum as just that, a museum, full of displays of long dead stuff, but it's also at the forefront of scientific study into the natural world. Not only do they document and research the latest developments, such as the giant squid, they are also involved in various high profile stories. My current favourites at the moment include Pete Burns' monkey coat and the Thames Whale.
I also love the forensic sleuths, who's job it is to separate fact from fiction, some of the stories both on the site and in the coffee room are just wonderful, including a very excited man that sent in a photo of his walking boot that had small human foot prints on it. The footprints were approximately an inch long; he didn't want to 'say' fairy or pixie but couldn't fathom how else they would have got there. Our hard working sleuths immediately spotted all the prints were left footed and asked if the man had kids, eventually he wrote a slightly bashful letter back about a footprint stamp owned by his young daughter. I think it's wonderful middle-aged men and women still want to believe in fairies and beasties and love that the museums attitude is not a mocking one.
It's also an incredible environmental institute, with more than 300 scientists work at the Museum to tackle a diverse range of global problems, such as threats to the Earth's biodiversity, the maintenance of delicate ecosystems, environmental pollution, disease and tackling climate change as well as untold numbers of other research projects.
The latest addition to the museum is the Darwin Centre, visitors and live web audiences can join the experts in topical discussions about the science world and explore a fascinating range of natural science subjects. You can view archive videos of these events on the website. My big recommendation though has to be the Darwin Centre tours, where you get to see things in jars (including brains if you look hard enough), specimens from Charles Darwin, flesh eating beetles and best of all the giant squid! Annoyingly the Darwin Centre is currently closed to visitors as it undergoes some building work, but don't despair, you can still get a brain from the shop, even if it's just a jelly mould.
- Article by the lovely Zem
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