Grant Museum of Zoology

Entry: Free

I hadn't heard of the Grant Museum of Zoology until quite recently, when I learnt that it was reopening in March after a period of refurbishment. I went along yesterday, surprised that there was still a collection of skeletons in London that I hadn't seen.

The Grant Museum was founded at University College London in 1827. Last year it closed for an eight month period in order to move to new premises in the university's Rockefeller Building on University Street. Apparently it's “the only remaining university zoological museum in London”, so presumably there used to be more of these amazing places.

I don't think I can rave about it enough after my brief visit. There are hundreds of cabinets and shelves and draws, all stuffed with skeletons and taxidermy and specimens preserved in jars. It's just one big room crammed with tributes to humainty's need to understand and categorise everything. Everywhere there's something to marvel at: owls in bell-jars; a complete quagga skeleton; a jar full of moles.

While I was allowed to take photographs provided I turned the flash off, I did tell the curator that I wasn't going to put them online. Possibly I should have pleaded the case for sharing a couple of them, because it's a shame to not be able to illustrate this post.

Anyway, if you're in London on a weekday afternoon with no money and an enquiring mind then this is somewhere you should definitely make time to visit.