While the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) is South Kensington’s landmark institution, families visiting London make a beeline for the nearby Natural History Museum. This temple to knowledge has been entertaining and educating Londoners and tourists for over a century, and many locals feel a personal connection to the museum as a result of childhood school trips.
For anyone with an interest in the natural world, the Natural History Museum is London's superstar venue, with stuffed specimens and skeletons from hundreds of species and the country’s most impressive collection of dinosaur skeletons. It's set next to the Science Museum on Exhibition Rd, so both museums can be visited on the same day, making for an ideal family day out in London.
There are buttons to press, levers to pull and fun organized activities, including sessions where you can handle fossils and bones from wild animals. Interactive experiences include the museum's ever-popular earthquake simulator and experiments demonstrating erosion and volcanic activity. And of course, you’ll have to drag kids away from the well-stocked gift shop...
Discover more with this guide to London’s Natural History Museum.
What is the History of the Natural History Museum?
The opening of the V&A in 1857 was followed by the grand opening of the Natural History Museum in 1881. The original design for the building was developed by Irish engineer Captain Francis Fowke; since he died a year later, his plans were expanded by Alfred Waterhouse, a committed devotee of the Gothic Revival style.
Waterhouse graced his grand new museum with soaring towers and cathedral-like arches, adding a riot of embellishments using terracotta tiles in place of carved stone – a more durable material when faced by the corrosive smog of Victorian London. The tiles were sculpted by French artist Dujardin, following Waterhouse’s hand-drawn designs.
Inside and out, the museum is covered in quirky depictions of plants, animals, birds and marine life; a terracotta menagerie of wolves, lions, saber-toothed cats and pterodactyls guards the parapets along the facade. Indeed, the tile work is almost as interesting as the specimens in the display cases inside.
When Should I Visit the Natural History Museum?
The Natural History Museum opens daily from 10am to 5:50pm, with the last entry at 5:30pm, closing only on October 9 and 24–26 December. However, it pays to plan the timing for your visit carefully, as some times are busier than others.
Summer weekends and school holidays can see huge crowds and massive entry queues, while term-time lunchtimes get busy with school groups. For the quietest experience, come early in the morning or later in the afternoon on a weekday during term time. Entry is free but you can book a timed entry slot online to avoid long queues on the day. Always check the schedule of special exhibitions and events before you come.
How Much Do Tickets Cost?
The Natural History Museum is free to visit, but donations help support the museum’s huge operating costs. Signs at the museum suggest donating 5 British pounds (£) per person – a bargain compared to most museums around Europe.
What Should I Eat and Drink on a Trip to the Museum?
The Natural History Museum has on-site restaurants with kiddie-friendly menus and cafes for refreshments and snacks – though costs can mount up, particularly if you add drink and cake stops to the equation. Consider saving your budget by bringing a picnic.
The Natural History Museum has a big picnic area in the basement in the Green Zone, though it’s reserved for school groups from 11am to 2pm on weekdays in term time. Alternative picnic spots include the Darwin Centre Courtyard and nearby Hyde Park (at the end of Exhibition Rd).
For restaurant eats, head to the south end of Exhibition Rd around Thurloe Place. You’ll find Thai, Lebanese, Chinese, Italian, Spanish tapas and other world foods, plus ice cream and plenty of fast food around South Kensington Tube station (including a Pret a Manger).
Also here is Daquise, a charmingly old-school Polish restaurant that has been dishing out pierogi since 1947, though it faces closure if plans to redevelop the station go ahead.
What are the Must-Sees at the Natural History Museum in London?
About five million people visit this collection of 80 million specimens every year, and you’ll want to set aside a good half day to explore. Check the website for upcoming events – held from October, the ticketed annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is one of the biggest shows on the calendar.
Admire the Grand Hintze Hall
The museum’s stately Hintze Hall resembles a cathedral nave – fittingly, as it was built in a time when natural sciences were challenging Christian ideas about the divine creation of life on earth. Named after a generous donor, it features an ornately tiled floor, arched doorways, ornate columns, sculpted animals scuttling up its walls and a grand staircase at its center, backed by huge stained-glass windows.
On the hall’s intricate ceiling are 162 hand-painted panels depicting plant species from across the globe. Yet your eye will be grabbed by the enormous skeleton of a blue whale, recovered from the coast of Ireland in the 1890s. Diving down from the ceiling, this 25m-long leviathan was installed in 2017, replacing “Dippy” – the cast of a Diplodocus skeleton, which greeted visitors for most of the last century.
Other exhibits around the hall include an American mastodon, a rock as old as the solar system and a pickled Atlantic blue marlin – just a taste of the wide-ranging exhibits in the galleries beyond. Note the white marble statue of Charles Darwin sitting, sage-like, on the central stairway.
Meet Prehistoric Giants in the Dinosaurs Gallery
You’ll hear the squeals of excited children from outside this popular gallery, as they come face-to-face with a lifelike, roaring animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex. Beyond, you can view a whole Triceratops skull, part of the first-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, assorted Iguanodon remains and a Scolosaurus with an armored shell and club-like tail.
The remainder of the Blue Zone on the ground floor is devoted to skeletons, models and taxidermy specimens of mammals, fish, amphibians and reptiles. Key exhibits include a model blue whale swimming among dolphins and porpoises, big cats, elephants, rhinos, hippos and polar bears. Look out for the extinct saber-toothed cat and duck-billed platypus, and duck into the dedicated dinosaur-themed gift shop.
Get Shaken By an Earthquake in the Red Zone
To explore the Red Zone on the first and second floors, take an escalator up through a glowing red planet to reach galleries devoted to rocks, volcanoes, earthquakes and tectonic activity. Pep up travelers with flagging energy levels by visiting the earthquake simulator – a juddering simulation of a grocery store hit by the 1995 earthquake at Kobe in Japan. You’ll also find gems and minerals in every imaginable color and configuration.
Discover Quirky Nature in the Green Zone
Featuring 22 remarkable objects dating back as far as 4.6 billion years, the Cadogan Gallery in the Green Zone has some of the rarest treasures ever put on display. Items range from a piece of moon rock to the skull of a Barbary lion from the medieval zoo in the Tower of London and a rare first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
Other Green Zone galleries spread across the ground, first and second floors feature fossils, minerals, birds and creepy crawlies. One undisputed highlight is the collection of fossil marine reptiles gathered by pioneering female paleontologist Mary Anning on England’s Jurassic Coast, featuring long-necked plesiosaurs and dolphin-like ichthyosaurs, with their “pineapple ring” eye bones.
Also worth your time are the Vault, home of the Aurora Pyramid of Hope, a collection of almost 300 colored diamonds; and the Minerals Gallery, displaying specimens in their original Victorian wooden cases.
See the Science Behind the Exhibits at the Darwin Centre
Completed in 2009, the Darwin Centre is where the museum’s 300 scientists and research staff study the specimens; visitors can watch them through big glass windows. Yet the main attraction is peeking at the collection of 20 million pickled specimens, including an octopus collected by Charles Darwin in Cape Verde in 1832. The garden outside the Darwin Centre is a good place to catch your breath before you head to the next exhibit.
Have a Sleepover at the Museum
On select nights, the museum holds Dino Snores – special overnight sessions for parents and children – that allow guests to roam around the museum at night without the crowds. Later, you’ll bed down for the night in Hintze Hall. The museum provides a mat but you’ll need to bring a sleeping bag, toothbrush and pajamas.
At adults-only Dino Snores events, there’s a bar and a three-course meal, plus activities ranging from animal encounters and stand-up comedy to a science show and a monster movie marathon. Also look out for silent disco nights and other grown-up evening events – see the website for listings.
Take a Natural History Tour
The museum has a busy schedule of free and paid-for tours. The fascinating (and free) Diverse History of Science tour follows the endeavors of pioneering female scientists, including giraffe expert Anne Innis Dagg, and Kathleen Lonsdale, who helped establish the science of crystallography. Paid-for tours on fixed dates visit the highlights of the museum and go behind the scenes to view unseen parts of the collection. See the museum website for details.
Is the Natural History Museum Accessible?
The Natural History Museum has done a good job of making its historic building accessible, with ramps, elevators, accessible toilets and wheelchairs you can borrow. To avoid the obstacle of the grand central staircase in Hintze Hall, elevators will take you to every floor.