Grant Museum of Zoology

Pickled animals everywhere!
Appealing to the biology nerds and those who lean more towards the slightly macabre day out in London, the Grant Museum of Zoology ticks all the boxes.
There is a jar of moles, animal skeletons, stuffed animals, wall to wall slides of cells… certainly one of the science curious, it’s easy to be deceived by the small interior but it’s so easy to lose a few hours of your day taking in all the specimens and learning a thing or two on the way.

When you first walk through the doors, that first look round takes you back to museums of the past of glass case. After a short while you realise that the old fashioned style museums have a lot to offer. The place is packed with specimens from floor to ceiling. You can adopt an exhibit and there is a certain fascination in looking at what has been adopted, there are still plenty left for you to choose. I would recommend a visit an hour to two are plenty to enjoy this wonderful place.

I stood there, rather dumbfounded the first time I stepped in. Well, after finally finding it, that took a little bit of trouble. There’s an amazing array of specimens and the little signs of adoption definitely contribute to an feeling of welcome. I’ve joined in a few events and each has been thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening, do stop by if you’ve got the chance to!

The Grant Museum of Zoology is one of London’s treasures a little off the beaten path. While the Natural History Museum houses beautiful examples of full, life sized animals with detailed information cards to provide information to the masses, Grant’s takes a simpler approach of having thousands of pickled, and taxidermied animals and their bones on display with mostly just a label and your imagination to take care of the rest. Scattered about are information cards containing interesting tidbits for certain pieces, but there is far too much here and far too little space to do it for each and every thing.
Despite it’s small size I spent way over an hour here glancing through the library-​like stacks, trying to get every little detail of every skeleton, section and filled jar. My favourite part of the museum was the Micrarium, which even without looking at it in detail posses this great beauty about it.
Overall this place is a great little visit if you’re looking for something a little different to do in London, and you have a penchant for things that are a little more grotesque.

On day four of my London visit I toured the Wellcome Collection and nearby Grant Museum. Grant’s cases were filled to the brim with stuff, pickled and defleshed critters. The specimens ranged from perfectly reconstructed skeletons to somewhat mishapen taxidermy pieces. Of particular interest to me were the intricate Blaschka glass models of mollusks and cnidarians; to date no one has been able to replicate their work.
For £15 you can adopt a specimen for a year, which includes a plaque with your name and invitations to special events. Best of all, unlike the Hunterian, you can take photos. If you’re more of an interpretive arts type you can arrange to move one of the specimens (with some restrictions/​exceptions) to one of the central tables for closer viewing.
If your tastes run a bit on the macabre side or if you’re a bio geek I would highly recommend a stop.

This is how the story begins. There was a dark, dark street. On the dark, dark street, there was a dark, dark university. In the dark, dark university, there was a dark, dark corridor Down the dark, dark corridor, there was a dark, dark museum. And in the dark, dark museum, some skeletons lived.
A Quagga skeleton, the inside chimp’s head and a jug of moles.
Definitely a place to take children who get a great deal out visiting.
This museum may not be one for the squeamish but you would be fascinated by the weird and wonderful treasure trove of creatures in jars full of formaldehyde and skeletons. It also has a model of an elephant’s heart and the rarest skeleton in the world.
A great idea Alex to spend fancy dress Unilocal halloween party here. With great sample of Jamaica melted in your mouth black river chocolate, trick or treat gift bag, chopstick game by React energy drink.

Very cool place to look at dead stuff in jars and bones of dead stuff. Basically if you like dead animals then you’ll like this place. Its not very big, more like 1 massive room, so if you have 30 – 45 min to kill (get it… kill… dead… see what I did there, ok. Bad, I know) pop in for a gander and a meander (what about rhyme? Any better?)

Them bones, them bones, gonna walk around…
Ok, maybe not, but you kind of expect them to in a museum like this, with full human and animal skeletons completed and just sitting there. If «Night Of The Museum» happened here, it wouldn’t be cute and fun, it would be freakin’ terrifying.
Let’s get real here for a second. What is this place? Let me share some info from their website:
«The Grant Museum of Zoology is the only remaining university zoological museum in London. It houses around 67,000 specimens, covering the whole Animal Kingdom. Founded in 1828 as a teaching collection, the Museum is packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid.»
Basically, it’s a giant collection of bones, all displayed, some open and some behind glass cases, for people to check out. The museum is one room but packed, literally floor to ceiling, with bones, preserved animals and pelts of different animals (but mostly bones.) Take the self-​guided tour, it’s worth it.
Some of the animals you know and are fascinating to see — monkeys and fish and snakes and giant elephant skulls and so on. There are even four skeletons peering down at you from the second floor as you walk in — three monkey-​esq (gorilla, etc) and one person. Woah.
Now, what makes this museum even more worth checking out are not the animals you know, but the ones you don’t. They’ve got the skeletal remains of extinct animals like the Tasmanian Tiger and The Dodo. They also have the remains of the Quagga, a zebra-​like animal, and since there are only seven sets of these bones left, this is actually the most rare skeleton in the world. Tell me that’s not worth seeing.
A great museum, a little strange, and I love it.