The Natural History Museum is on many a person's bucket-list to visit.

Now THIS is what I call a museum entrance!

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After all, it's arguably the best place in England to view dinosaurs and few people have managed to avoid adopting a childhood fascination with the massive reptiles that carried on into adulthood. So, being a fellow dinosaur-enthusiast, I could hardly walk past it when I spent a few days in London.

I'm happy to report that the museum was well worth the visit. As we went mid week in the morning, the crowds were very manageable: when they did turn up it was mostly school groups of primary school children, so we could easily peek over their heads - win! As with all the London museums that we visited, we expected to be in and out in a couple of hours, but it sucked out the best part of the day. While our feet were complaining our brains were humming, and there's a surprising amount on display for any curious traveller to explore...

Pachycephalosaurus gives new meaning to the phrase  'thick-headed'

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'THE' Dinosaur and the Amazing Building

When you step into the Natural History museum the first thing you notice isn't Dippy the Diplodocus in the centre, but the building itself. With it's striped stone, intricate nature-themed carvings and the cathedral-like height and use of light, I found myself gawping up at it all, completely stunned. It is - in a word - beautiful and is a perfect setting for the more traditional collections that you find inside. It feels eminently victorian, which sits well with the marble statue of Darwin who (currently) sits front and centre, welcoming you into the place. But, of course, the real celebrity is Dippy and it doesn't disappoint. Smaller than the Brontosaurus images you often have in mind, it is nevertheless both imposing and graceful, stretching out its head above the crowds almost close enough to touch. You start to get a real sense of the scale of dinosaurs, though if you wander to the sides and peek at the other isolated displays - such as a vast mammoth skull - Dippy seems quite modest in comparison.

"We're just a pair of charming fluffy cuties. Pay no attention to the teeth."

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Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

Naturally, with Dippy at the helm, the most popular exhibit was going to be the dinosaurs. It's arranged in a long snaking moody corridor (a little like a queue at Alton Towers) and holds an impressive number of life-sized casts of famous dinosaur fossils as well as a couple of originals. It's well supported by displays that talk about dinosaur evolution, breeding practices, combat, behaviour and more. Being the most popular exhibit, you have to be prepared to be patient and walk at a shuffling pace, but there is plenty to look at and plenty of places to step away from the flow and take a bit of time. The iguanodon is especially impressive in its sheer size, as well as the hefty triceratops, T-Rex and the Ankylosaurus partially encased in rock. There were also fun animatronics on display, such as a T-rex and a pair of feathered raptors. If anything, it's as if they are swimming in the things, with some dinosaur skeletons even hanging from the ceiling. It certainly gives you plenty to look at.

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Further proof that babies are eldritch horrors.

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The Terror-Fetus Teaches Us About Human Development

With the dinosaurs under your belt you might be forgiven for thinking that most of the museum is over, but it's only the beginning! Drift around and soon you will come to the exhibition on human development. Here the museum very much shows it's age: while it's a great interactive experience especially for children, the exhibits themselves are very long in the tooth. The displays often feature videos with narration and an abundance of dubious fashion and haircuts that marks them as being filmed somewhere around the 80s at best. Even the accents seem dated. It's a little disappointing for such a prestigious museum, but there's still plenty to be learned and the section about the brain development of babies and small children is especially intriguing. Also, being the liberal that I am, I really appreciated the frankness and openness of the sex education on offer, including anatomically correct nude sculptures and illustrations. With this exhibit (and the museum in general) being so focused on children, it was heartening to see that science trumped prudishness in this case.

On a less serious note, this exhibition features a massive horrifying model of a fetus that is nestled in a cave-like section, so if you're a fan of the bizarre you should give it a peek.

You need to get yourself to the whale room. It's immense.

So. Much. Taxidermy.

Any museum about natural history worth its salt has a well stocked taxidermy section. As a kid it was what I loved most about our local museum, because it allowed me to see so many beautiful animals up close. So it's no surprise that The Natural History Museum has these long-dead creatures in spades all throughout the museum. One long corridor is dedicated to  walls of floor-to-ceiling fossils of ancient sea creatures. Another corridor holds cabinets of eggs, displays of various wings and feet, and even a case full of hundreds of species of beautiful humming birds. Mammals, reptiles, insects - you name it and you can see them here in the museum and they will suck hours of your time into studying them all. Perhaps the most impressive room is the 'whale room' which displays the evolution of horses, deer, elephants and more, all with examples of modern and ancient animals in full scale. Hanging above you and in the centre of the room is the marine life, showing the sheer vastness of whales and their marvellous anatomy. Climb up onto a balcony and you can learn about them as well as dolphins, manatees and narwhals. It's enough to take your breath away.

A timeline of our ancestors

A Hidden Gem of Human Evolution

Carry on through the museum and you may start to flag. You may wonder whether you're anywhere near the end. Fool! There is still plenty to see!

Towards the 'back' of the museum you come to the section on human evolution. For me it was a complete surprise, so to stumble across a wall of human skulls really caught me offgaurd and packed an emotional punch. They were beautiful to see, with our oldest ancestors at the bottom and homo sapiens  at the top. Follow the entrance through and it took you to a relatively modest exhibit in size that was packed with quality content for anyone who is fascinated by 'cavemen'. There were even more skulls, and plaster casts and two stunning models of a Neanderthal and modern human. Again there was no shyness in nudity for these models, which made them all the more striking, and the ability to stare each one in the face was quite magical. They were intelligent, perhaps a little standoffish, perhaps a little dangerous. Serious kudos to the sculptors for these.
A surprise find inside was also 'the hobbit' skeleton - a tiny and fascinating human species found in a cave some years ago - in complete form, stood up to their full (diminutive) height. For me, this exhibition was a gem.

"GAZE UPON ME AND HEED MY WARNING, FOOLISH MORTALS!"

Take the Escalator to the Terror-Dome and See How Our Planet Tries to Kill Us

Apparently glowing, womb-like caverns of terror are a theme around here.
Next to the human evolution section was the surprise of a stunning glowing orb with an escalator attached going, apparently, nowhere. Take the escalator up and you move through a gorgeous sculpture of magma and tectonic plates to emerge a floor higher to a massive exhibit all about our planet's geology. Personally, we were flagging at this point and geology isn't a personal interest of mine, so we moved through it quite quickly, but it was a quality exhibition with plenty of interactive displays about various rocks, minerals and sediments. There were plenty of examples that you were allowed to touch, including a pillar from the giant's causeway. The most interesting section for me was the one on earthquakes and how shifting tectonic plates cause them. They even had a display set up as a life-sized japanese grocery shop. Step onto it and it showed a video of a strong earthquake in action in the real-life version of the store, while the floor beneath you shifted and jerked around to simulate a real earthquake, clattering and shaking all the items around you. While I've no doubt that it was toned down a little so that it didn't actually injure anyone, it was still a striking simulation that helped you get in the mindset of the people affected by the catastrophe and to appreciate the raw power of the earth beneath our feet.

But Wait, There More...

 By the time we left the earth section we were well and truly knackered and perilously close to being late for our train home if we didn't get our timings for the return journey right. But if we had stayed on and been prepared to spend more money there were even more exhibitions that we could have explored. When we visited there were a couple of exhibits closed for renovation, but the paid exhibit on colours in nature looked impressive for anyone interested. Also we left the Darwin Centre largely untouched, where real science is being conducted every day. To get a sense of what's on if you want to make a trip to the museum, make sure to check their website.

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So What's the Final Verdict?

In conclusion, the Natural History Museum is a brilliant collection of Mother Nature's best work, curated throughout the years by keen scientists who are in awe of her. It's far more than just a dinosaur museum and, should you visit, you need to make sure you give yourself all day to get around the place. If you do, you won't regret it.

Dont' worry. There's a cafe ;)

It will comes as no surprise to my regular readers that I'm a Prof. Brian Cox fan

(Or 'Professor Lovely' as a delightfully snarky friend calls him). 

When I heard that he was hosting a live tour I jumped at the chance to see one of his lectures 'for real', and headed to Sheffield City Hall on Thursday 6th Oct, ready to be educated in all things space, not really knowing what to expect.

When the show opened with a video of singing muppets I was, to say the least, a bit confused, but certainly entertained. Talk about an intro!

As it happened, the show was effectively an extension of Brian Cox and Robin Ince's Radio 4 programme 'The Infinite Monkey Cage', where Brian and Robin take a look at the world through a scientist's eyes, with Brian to provide the science and with Robin bringing humor and taking on the role of the interested and self-educated everyman. While the focus was on the lecture style, at times Robin would also interject to lighten the mood, banter, and join in with Brian as well as encouraging audience participation, such as through tweeting science questions. Robin was funny and charming and the two got along very well. Having never heard of 'The Infinite Monkey Cage' before, I was intrigued to check it out (but more on that later).

The meat of the show though was, of course, Brian's main lecture. It focused around the discovery of the Big Bang and how we can detect the size and composition of our incredibly large universe, and drifted into questions about the possibility of alien life on other planets and the probability of finding anything that resembles us. While fans will have been introduced to these concepts in varying details in his other programmes, it still managed to be fresh and was delivered with his classic mix of gentle passion and wonder, and his ability to make the concepts approachable without compromising on precision.This made the whole talk very engaging. While time flew during the lecture, Robin's interjections managed to keep everything fresh, which helped keep the energy levels going. All in all it was a great night out for anything with a curiosity for sciences, especially fans of Brian's wide range of work.

Can I still See Him?

If you'd like to check out the show the good news is that it has proved so popular that Brian Cox Live has been given a series of arena dates as well for 2017. These will be visiting Derby, Nottingham, Newcastle, Glasgow and Wembley in May 2017. There are also a whole host of 2016 dates still on the cards, running up to the 2nd of December, if you can score the tickets. So why not give it a try? I certainly enjoyed myself.

The Infinite Monkey Cage

As I said, Robin and Brian's banter was a lot of fun, so when they mentioned (through muppet-song) that the show was a product of the programme Infinite Monkey Cage naturally I had to go searching to find it.

The great news is that all 14 series' are available to download on BBC radio 4's Iplayer account here.

I've listened to a couple so far and they've been delightful, bringing in interesting guests (both comedians and scientists) to weigh in on a whole variety of subjects. I know where my 5GB data limit will be going on my phone on the morning commute....

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm a big Night at the Museum fan, so when the third film actually took place in the British Museum I knew it was a travesty that I hadn't been there yet.

Yes, all the exhibits were alive,I grant you, but they were so cool. The sheer variety on display was more than I'd ever thought about. It reminded me that the place existed, basically, and I had a hunger to get my backside down south and experience the real deal: arguably the biggest and best museum in the country.

And I was not disappointed.

The British museum itself is free, situated on Russel street, which is easily reached from the major stations via the tube or bus. For me, it was a 20 min ride on the Piccadilly line (westbound) from St Pancras station and a short walk. The museum itself is a large traditional building with Edwardian classical styling, but as soon as you walk through into the main hall you can see that this is no ordinary structure. The entrance hall is sweeping and beautiful in a loose circle, with the temporary exhibits occupying the upper floor of the central circle, and with all the other steady exhibits spread around it across five levels.

Luckily there are plenty of facilities and cafes (and gift shops!), so while nothing's cheap you can easily spend all day having a good explore. Personally we spent well over 6 hours there, until our howling feet and fatigue claimed us and we had to call it a day. Even then, there is plenty to come back for.

"Six Hours?! How Much is There to See, Really?"

A whole world. Despite the name, The British Museum really isn't just about the history of Britain, or even the British Empire, but exists as a capsule of the whole world's cultures. You can find treasures from the Ancient Near East, the Islamic World, Africa, Egypt, China, South & South East Asia, Japan, Korea, The Pacific and Australia, Mesoamerica, Central and South America, North America, Prehistoric Europe, The Greek World, The Roman Empire, Roman Britain, Medieval Europe, Renaissance and Later Europe, Modern Europe and America, as well as modern examples of art mixed in with each culture. Having almost all of the world's cultures in one place to seamlessly journey through is -to put it bluntly- a goddamned revelation.

This stunning mural of an Assyrian lion hunt went on for several ROOMS at full scale.

"But Colonialism!"

Yes, I know that the British Museum is at the centre of debates on colonialism in museums, and I have mixed feelings on the subject that I have already written about at length here:

http://preludesblogofwords.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/what-can-digital-heist-of-bust-of.html?m=1

But you can't argue against the sheer awe at walking around this whole world of art and history in a day and what this can teach you. Everything is beautifully curated and treated with great respect and value and by holding everything side by side, no one item is treated as being more important than another, or one culture as being 'superior' to another. The end effect is all so amazing that it makes you proud to be human.

"Ok, So What Are The Highlights?"

As well as the general feeling of awe and discovery that comes with experiencing so many cultural treasures side by side, the thing that stuck out most to me were the sheer sense of scale that the museum was able to accommodate. 

For example, there were plaques of the beautifully intricate Assyrian lion hunt, snaking through rooms in a  dramatic tableaux. There were panels from the flipping Patheon (!), in full scale, wrapping around the whole building. Huge Egyptian pharaohs stared down at you, and Assyrian gatekeepers smiled next to the storeys-high gates themselves. Noble totem poles stood as markers and full-floor mosaics decorated the stairwells. Reams upon reams of orange and black pottery, and intricate gold-work, fabulously detailed islamic tiles, ticking timepieces and curios nestled against one another in displays. I have never seen anything like it.

One of the many Pharaohs keeping an eye on us.

In addition to the scale, what really excited me was finally seeing in person so many of the treasures that I has viewed in countless picture books about history while I was growing up. It was like encountering a celebrity!

"Look! A real easter island figure!"

"oh my god it's the jade-mosaic aztec snake. I've never seen it in real life!"

"Oh Jesus that's THE Lindlow bog man!"

"HOLY BALLS THAT'S THE GODDAMNED ROSETTA STONE!!!"

In the end, It's just very hard to describe how the sheer wonder of the place hits you right in the gut. All you can do is to go see it for yourself.

A beautiful part of the African exhibit

Bonus feature: One very happy blogger.

I'm not big on military history, but you've got to admit that the innovation and design quality involved in kitting out the fighters and hunters of the past was pretty amazing.


With this in mind, I decided to go out on a noble quest to the Royal Armouries in Leeds to see some of these innovations in action.


The first thing to know about the Royal Armouries is that it's free entry, which is always brilliant to see, and open 10am to 5pm. There's easy public parking not far away at Clarence Dock for about £10 for all day and the museum is situated on the dockside and walking distance from the town centre. Often it has live demonstrations and particular workshops and talks that you can attend, as well as exhibitions that - like most museums- mix the cyclical with the permanent: on my visit the special attraction was a display of some the treasures of the Staffordshire Horde. In my case we were a little too early to see the live tournament fights etc, but if you're visiting and especially if you're bringing kids along it might be worth aiming for after 11 or 12 and going for the weekend slots when everything is a little busier.


So what's in the museum?

The main displays on offer were War, Oriental, Hunting, Tournament, Self Defense and the Staffordshire Hoard. But it would be a crime to review the museum without talking about THAT entrance hall...
The museum is arranged vertically over a few floors and linking them all is a wide spiral staircase that surrounds a stunning display of historical arms and armour. War has always been a game of numbers and this is clearly shown in the sheer amount of items arranged in a grimly beautiful piece of gleaming art, perfectly regimented like the armies that bore the equipment.

Impressive, to say the least.

The level of attention to detail, pomp and circumstance follows through the whole museum: there really are some very important artifacts on display that belonged to very famous figures in history and the museum knows just how to present them so you can appreciate their full view. The tournament section is perhaps the most star-studded, displaying armour from Henry VIII to the Holy Roman Emperor, as well as the Armouries' famous mask that appears on their logos. But the War section does a fantastic job of showing a timeline of quality items from wars throughout the ages, and manages to inspire a little of the awe and fear people must have felt when facing down these warriors due to their fantastic model displays. One, for example, sees a full-sized pair of armoured soldiers facing off against soldiers with lances. Another, in the oriental section, shows the largest example of animal armour in the world - a 17thc almost fully complete set of war elephant armour. And you'd better believe that they've mounted it on a fully-scaled model of an Indian elephant, complete with rider. Intimidating stuff.

   The museum is set perfectly to help visitors appreciate the level of skill and craftsmanship involved from practical pieces to the decorative gifts that were given to great leaders. One element that I found fascinating was when they deconstructed armour or turned it inside out so that you could see the clever construction of an armoured jerkin, for example, or the intricate embroidery on the inside of a helmet. Image was everything in war, but the hidden details had real value to them too.


Does the Royal Armouries museum glorify war?

Miniature commoners caught in the fray.

It's impossible not to be struck with awe and an appreciation for the beauty in these instruments of protection and death, but does this mean that the museum glorifies war in a way that's distasteful? For my part I would say no. It's important to appreciate the beauty of these items and the skill of their use, both for their own sake and also to enable us to get into the minds of our ancestors and how they responded to them. Tournaments, chivalry, bravery and pomp were all huge parts of how mainstream masculinity was (and is) constructed, and how nationalism and many symbols of each country's culture are expressed. The important thing is that even in the rooms where the idealism and romance of war is most expressed by the exhibits, the curators are careful to include important details that impress upon you the reality of war. Those large imposing figures aren't just picture-bait, but put you in the position of someone facing them in person - looking up into that killing machine on horseback. The insides of the armour show the realities of living inside of them. And even in tiny details - such as the miniature representation of a great battle - they take the time to show common people fleeing in terror.

Finally the 'self defense' room, which pulls us into the modern age, acts as a sobering example of what war and violence means for us now. Here you can find testimonies of people affected by gun violence, different types of brutal common weapons throughout the twentieth century, and a display case swimming with examples of real weapons seized from every-day people by the police. Oddly, at the end of this exhibit there is also a display of the different swords from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, further emphasising the conflict between the fantasy and reality of violence and battles, even in the modern mindset today.
In the end I appreciate the blend of realities: the good and bad sides of these battles in our culture. And neither side is turned into melodrama.


So....should I visit?

Absolutely! Not only is it free, but it has some seriously important and valuable artifacts, all beautifully presented. Definitely worth your time.




When you visit, keep your eyes peeled for these...

I wonder if king Henry noticed...

• The craftsman's mistake on the patterning Henry VIII's duelling armour and his rushed-job attempt to fix it. (We've all been there, man!)
• A very cool demon's-mask for a horse in the oriental section.
• An unsettlingly anatomically correct realisation of a lady boar's nether region on one of the models. (That's..uh...good attention to detail there, buddy.)
• Armadillo-scaled armour in the oriental section
• Tiny, tiny full-plate armour for children.
• The biggest codpiece I've ever seen.
• A completely adorable chinese dog/demon face on a sword hilt.
• The most badass elephant & hunters vs tiger model you're ever likely to see.

One of the great things about Britain is it's sheer number of castles, so it would have been a crime to visit Wales without taking one in...


This April I ended up in Wales when I went to a writing retreat at Ty Newydd. The last time I was in the country had been in 2012 when I attended the Student Role Playing Nationals in Cardiff and, to my regret, I saw nothing of the town but the inside of cardiff uni and a (very tasty) noodle bar. I was determined to actually see Wales this time, so I grouped up with a couple of ladies and hiked across the farmer's tracks and pebble beach to the seaside town of Criccieth. We were impressed to find the ruin of a castle sat atop a hill with its back to the sea and the town curled around below it.


The History to Criccieth Castle

Criccieth Castle lies in what was the old Welsh district of Eifionydd, which was part of the ancient kingdom of Gwynedd. Gwynedd had risen up when the Romans left Britain in 410AD and, like many powers of the time, it was part of a network of independant princes and lords.

The foundations of Criccieth Castle were built by prince Llywelyn ab Lorwerth, ruler of Gwynedd in 1201. He had a mixed relationship with his English neighbours but on the whole managed to carve out a reasonable parlay: the English King John recognised Llywelyn's right to rule and even agreed to marry his illegitimate daughter to the Welsh prince. However as Llywelyn's ambitions increased and he asserted his supremacy of Wales through military pressure, John was quickly irritated and the two powers warred. Llywelyn pushed forward with successes and, in pushing against the English, he managed to unite many of the Welsh princes towards a common enemy. As hostilities ebbed he was shrewd in moving to make marriage alliances with the English lords on the Welsh March and he began building Criccieth Castle to cement his power and status visibly.

While we know of this activity in the early 1200s we don't actually find a written record on Criccieth Castle until 1239. Here there is a record of Dafydd  - Llywelyn ab Lorwerth's legitimate heir - imprisoning his half brother Gruffudd and nephew Owain at Criccieth. The castle would intermittently serve as a prison throughout its entire life. In the end, when Dafydd died Gruffudd took over as Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, and inherited Criccieth Castle with the title.

Llywelyn's greatest success came in 1267 and the Treaty of Montgomery with the English king Henry III. Here, the English king formally recognised Llywelyn as the prince of all of Wales....provided that he paid fealty to the king.
As is so often the case, peace didn't last long as Llywelyn pushed at the boundaries of these terms and Criccieth Castle served as a hub for many courtly negotiations. Llywelyn fell in 1282 when the then English King Edward I went to war with him and in the battle Criccieth Castle was captured by Edward.

Criccieth itself became a small borough in Wales that was under the control of Edward and his descendants and Edward heavily invested in building work on the castle, a large part of which was to repair the damage of attacking it in the first place. It is thought that Edward even installed a huge trebuchet war machine that sat on a platform on the castle walls. Criccieth Castle would remain under English control all the way until 1404 and the victory of Owain Glyndwr's Welsh rebellion.

Over the years insensitive English officials and excessive taxation sowed unrest in Wales that culminated in Owain Glyndwr proclaiming himself as prince of Wales. His rebels mounted an attack on the English garrisons throughout the country. Criccieth Castle was besieged and eventually defeated due to the mix of cutting off it's supplies from the land and the sea and through sheer military force. Badly damaged, Criccieth Castle fell to Owain Glyndwr and into Welsh control once more. It was never fully rebuilt and gradually faded into relative obscurity.


So what is it like nowadays?

For a tourist, Criccieth Castle isn't the most impressive castle in Britain in any sense, but it is well worth a look if you're in the area. The hill it's built upon offers stunning views across the sea, Criccieth town and out to the rolling mountains that surround the location, with Snowden in the distance.

The museum itself is small but nicely done, tracking the history of several Welsh castles, and there's a palpable pride that these are Welsh castles built by the Welsh rather than Norman castles that were imposed on the country. The exhibition is interesting because it focuses on telling a wider Welsh history through the eyes of Gerald of Wales who moved through the country and chronicled his impressions of the Welsh peoples and Princes. It offers a great traveller's view to the country and the people who set up the exhibition did so with care and a sense of humor, often putting conflicting descriptions together side by side: for example, having Gerald describe both the charitable, loyal welcoming and noble natures of the Welsh and the money-grabbing feckless natures of the Welsh that he described apparently without care for the contradictions. The exhibition boards are a striking mix of neon and gothic and there is a very entertaining cartoon about Gerald of Wales that plays which is great for children and surprisingly informative and approachable.

Finally, from the tourist perspective, everything is in dual languages - both Welsh and English - which is brilliant to see and very interesting to try to read for anyone unfamiliar with Welsh.

Overall I enjoyed my visit and I'd definitely recommend taking a look if you're close to Criccieth.

Want More?

Check out the 'Travel and Tourism' tag for more posts on trips and experiences.

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Stay curious!

Sources

Thank you to Cadw - the Welsh Government's Historic Environment Service, esp Richard Advent, for their detailed work on the Criccieth guidebook.

A museum doesn't need to be big to be beautiful...

Green turtle foetus, displayed at the museum

This week marked the start of British Science Week, a nationwide celebration of everything cool about science. As part of it, on Friday was the university of Sheffield's Discovery Week, and I decided that after work I would finally do what I've been meaning to for years: visit the Alfred Denny Museum.

The museum forms part of the University of Sheffield's animal and plant sciences department and was created in 1905, back when the university was known as Firth College. It was created by the university's' first professor in biology, Alfred Denny, who pulled the collection together to aid his teaching. His lectures were engaging, often drawing in some 600 people and he was fascinated by the quirks and logic of evolution, so it paid to have practical items on hand to use as demonstrations.


The museum itself is located within the Alfred Denny building,just before the Arts Tower as you emerge from under the bridge at the students union. It's tiny, limited to only one room but when you find your way it to it instantly exudes a Victorian/Edwardian charm. The antique cabinets are absolutely jam packed with specimens in formaldehyde jars or displayed as bleached skeletons, to the point where i was quite taken aback. There was so much to see that you didn't quite know where to start.

Luckily the museum does have quite a good sense of order amongst all the variety, with each set of cabinets holding particular groups of animals. Jellyfish blend into molluscs and into sponges and arthropods, insects, fish, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and even a human skeleton, all joined intermittently by beautiful fossils. 

There's a sense of grim beauty about the tightly-packed displays, especially when you happen upon the tiny examples of foetuses vulnerably frozen in time. Or when you find the more unsettling exhibits, such as a cluster of preserved bloatfly larvae in a horses' stomach. The skeletons are especially impressive - a must see for anyone who's got a little goth in them - but you can also find  exhibits with entire organ sets spread out for
consideration, with some even bisected completely.


It's clear that Denny made a wise choice when investing in this museum and it is certainly the best collection of educational taxidermy that I've seen in my travels so far. If you're in the area it's definitely worth checking out for yourself.




The Alfred Denny Museum opens to the public on the first Saturday of every month at 10am, 11am and 12pm for guided tours. 

Keep in touch....

Remember, you can follow Preludes: Blog of Words us on Twitter and Facebook. Or Subscribe to us on Blogluvin' to never miss a post.

Stay curious!

For More Museum Trips...

- Wax Vikings: A Trip to the Jorvik Viking Centre
- A Trip to York Castle Museum and the Amazing Victorian Street
- A Visit to Stonehenge