NFT Map: 36
Address: Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD
Phone: 020 7942 5000
Website: www.nhm.ac.uk
Hours: Daily 10 am–17.50 pm (Last admission 17.30)
“After Hours” events run on the last Friday of each month during Nov–Apr. 24–26 Dec: closed.
Admission: Free access to most of the Museum. Fee charged for some special exhibitions (free to Members).
Visiting the Natural History Museum is like reading National Geographic, if it was edited by JK Rowling. As imagination-tingling to adults as it is to kids, you can mull over serious questions about genetic modification and the environmental cost of modern life, while walking inside a termite mound or knocking on a petrified tree.
With more than 70 million specimens in their collection, you simply won’t see it all at once, or for most of us—ever. But with free entry, regularly refreshed exhibits and unforgettable special exhibitions, it’s worth dropping in when you have the opportunity. Grab a free map at the entrance to work out your route, which is colour-coded for a (slightly) easier life: Red Zone for the planet and forces of nature; Green for ecology and the environment; Blue for dinosaurs, mammals and biology; and Orange for the Wildlife Garden and behind-the-scenes peeks.
Weekends are inevitably heaving with hyperactive button-pressing families, spellbound tourists and Londoners trying to rebuild the brain cells they killed off with the night before’s drinking; weekdays are amok with school groups. But don’t let this put you off. If there’s a queue outside the main entrance on Cromwell Road, and you don’t fancy killing time by spotting all the different creatures carved around the entrance arch, pop ‘round the side to Exhibition Road entrance and you’ll fast-track yourself in. You can go early or late for fewer crowds, or stick with the permanent exhibitions, which are superb but not as sexy as the world-class special exhibitions which draw in the masses. Or, if all else fails, just shove the kids out the way: they’re smaller than you and the buttons are so much fun to press.
Anyone who didn’t see the Dinosaur Exhibition as a child really missed out: run here and rectify the situation immediately if you haven’t been, or revisit and enjoy the modernised exhibits if you have. The Mammals Exhibition will get you wondering exactly how someone stuffs a giraffe, and gives you a chance to get close to the gaping jaws of a hippo. For a different perspective on this room, go up to the balcony around it: watching people stare agog at the brilliantly-displayed blue whale is as entertaining as the exhibits themselves. For proof that even history geeks can make the earth move for you, visit the Power Within exhibition which recreates an earthquake (though don’t expect a Universal Studios experience. The will is there, bless, but the budget just isn’t…). Watch blushing parents introduce their kids to the birds and the bees in the Human Biology section, where an 8-times-life sized model of a foetus will put you off pregnancy forever. The Wildlife Garden is an oasis of serenity open from April–October, or you can impress a date (or not, depending on your coordination) by ice-skating next to the stunning Victorian building from November–January.
The Museum’s Special Exhibitions are superb—check the website for current information. The annual Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year, October–April, is utterly inspirational, while a varying daily programme of events includes lectures, behind the scenes tours of the botany department, and fossil workshops for kids. Due to the success of the children’s version, the museum is now running Dino Snores sleepovers for adults, which includes a three course meal, life drawing classes and an all night monster movie marathon. So if you fancy yourself as Ben Stiller in Night at The Museum start saving, as the stay will cost you a whopping £175.
Like the creatures it displays (except for the Dodo—you’ll find one in the Green Zone), the museum keeps evolving. Aptly, the latest major development is the Darwin Centre, where you can stoke your nightmares by checking out the giant tarantulas, experience life in a cocoon (like life in a London flat, but more spacious), and watch scientists at work. You might not think that watching scientists analysing and cataloguing bits of plant would be much of a spectator sport, but an hour in the centre will whiz by and leave you bursting with new knowledge to irritate your mates with.