Here is an account of our visit to the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London.
Music: www.incompetech.com.
Some notes about the museum:
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England (the others are the Science Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum). Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road. The museum is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. The museum is a world-renowned centre of research, specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Darwin. The Natural History Museum Library contains extensive books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork collections linked to the work and research of the scientific departments. Access to the library is by appointment only.
The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons, and ornate architecture — sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature — both exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast which dominates the vaulted central hall.
Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881, and later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.
Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not levy an admission charge.
Another iconic display is the parallel skeleton and model of a blue whale. The display of the skeleton, weighing 10 tons and some 25m long, was only made possible in 1934 with the building of the New Whale Hall (now the Large Mammals Hall), though it had been in storage for 42 years since its stranding on sandbanks at Wexford Bay. Discussion of the idea of a life-size model also began around this time, and work was undertaken within the Whale Hall itself. Since taking a cast of such a large animal was deemed prohibitively expensive, scale models were used to meticulously piece the structure together. During construction, workmen left a trapdoor within the whale's stomach, which they would use for surreptitious cigarette breaks. Before the door was closed and sealed forever, some coins and a telephone directory were placed inside - this soon growing to an urban myth that a time capsule was left inside. The work was completed - entirely within the hall and in full view of the public - in 1938. At the time it was the largest such model in the world, at 28.3m in length, though the construction details were later borrowed by several American museums, who scaled the plans further.
The Darwin Centre is host to Archie, an 8 metre long giant squid taken alive in a fishing net near the Falkland Islands in 2004. The squid is not on general display, but stored in the large tank room in the basement of the Phase 1 building. On arrival at the museum, the specimen was immediately frozen while preparations commenced for its permanent storage. Since few complete and reasonably fresh examples of the species exist, 'wet storage' was chosen, leaving the squid undissected. A 9.45m acrylic tank was constructed (by the same team that provide tanks to Damian Hirst), and the body preserved using a mixture of formalin and saline solution.
The museum holds the remains and bones of the River Thames Whale that lost its way on 20 January 2006 and swam into the Thames. Although primarily used for research purposes, and held at the museum's storage site at Wandsworth, the skeleton has been put on temporary public display.
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Marvellous Madame Tussauds, Londonby ajdpadbury32,155 views
i am in awe..this whale is bigger than huge..gigantic?
happinesson 2 months ago
@happinesson It was pretty big!
ajdpadbury 2 months ago
Seen this whale it's really impressive in person. But when I went there in Janurary on a college trip that room was shut for redevelopments.
starrypawz 1 year ago
@starrypawz That is a shame, I hope you can go back and see it:)
ajdpadbury 1 year ago
Thanks for uploading this video. I went to london a few months ago to see the red carpet event of the alice in wonderland premiere and when we went to the natural history mueseum that room was shut - i could only catch a glimse of it's head and the elephant through the key hole (yeah i know) but now i can see it - YAY!
mastterby 1 year ago
@mastterby Thanks for commenting, although the exhibit was closed I am sure you saw some celebs at the film premiere that made up for it!:)
ajdpadbury 1 year ago