Natural History Museum

About Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum sits on Cromwell Road in South Kensington, housed in a Romanesque building by Alfred Waterhouse that opened in 1881. The terracotta facade is covered in carved and moulded animals, plants, and extinct creatures, so the architecture is part of the attraction before you even step inside. The collection runs to tens of millions of specimens across zoology, botany, palaeontology, mineralogy, and entomology, drawn from centuries of scientific work, including material collected by Charles Darwin.

The central space, Hintze Hall, is the first thing most people see. For years a Diplodocus cast stood here, but the hall is now dominated by a blue whale skeleton suspended overhead. Beyond it, the dinosaur gallery remains the busiest part of the museum, with a long-running animatronic T. rex. Other highlights include the Mammals gallery with its model blue whale, the earthquake and volcano section in the Red Zone, and the Treasures gallery in the Cadogan Gallery, where single standout objects from across the collection are displayed together. The Wildlife Garden and the seasonal ice rink outside are worth knowing about depending on the time of year.

General admission is free, which is standard for the UK's national museums, though some temporary exhibitions are ticketed separately and often need to be booked ahead. The museum gets very busy, especially on weekends and during school holidays, so arriving early or later in the afternoon makes for a calmer visit. It's a short walk from South Kensington Underground station, and sits next to the Victoria and Albert Museum and close to the Science Museum, making it easy to combine two or three sites in one day in this part of London.