Grant Museum of Zoology
Grant Museum of Zoology, Natural history museum at University College London, England.
The Grant Museum of Zoology is a natural history museum at University College London housing roughly 68,000 zoological specimens from across the animal kingdom. The collection includes skeletons, mounted animals, and preserved specimens that show the breadth of animal diversity.
Robert Edmond Grant established this teaching collection in 1828, creating the first university zoological museum in England. It remains the last such museum that London still has today.
The museum displays remains of extinct species like the Tasmanian tiger and quagga, making the need for conservation visible to visitors. Walking through the collections, people can see which animals once roamed the earth and understand why protecting living species matters today.
The museum is open Tuesday through Friday in the afternoon and Saturday mornings, though certain areas have limited wheelchair access. Visitors who need accessibility accommodations should check ahead to learn which parts of the collection are accessible.
The collection features elaborate glass models made by Blaschka, a complete quagga skeleton, and bisected animal heads prepared for anatomical study. These special objects show different ways that natural history museums have conveyed knowledge about animals over time.
Location: London Borough of Camden
Inception: 1828
Accessibility: Wheelchair limited access
Part of: UCL Culture
Address: University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
Opening Hours: Tuesday-Friday 13:00-17:00; Saturday 11:00-17:00
Email: museums@ucl.ac.uk
Website: https://ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum-zoology
GPS coordinates: 51.52373,-0.13427
Latest update: December 6, 2025 17:41
London offers far more than Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. Away from the main attractions, numerous sites remain unfamiliar even to many locals. This selection includes the ruins of St Dunstan-in-the-East, where a medieval church has been transformed into a public garden, the Sir John Soane's Museum with its antiquities and architectural fragments, and Dennis Severs' House, a Georgian townhouse preserved as a lived-in time capsule. The collection features gardens such as Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park and Kyoto Garden in Holland Park, historic buildings like the 14th-century Charterhouse and St Bartholomew the Great, London's oldest parish church. It also covers unusual museums including the Old Operating Theatre, Europe's oldest surviving surgical theater, and industrial monuments like Crossness Pumping Station with its Victorian steam engines. Leadenhall Market displays Victorian architecture in the financial district, while God's Own Junkyard in Walthamstow exhibits thousands of neon signs. Other sites range from the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu temple in Neasden to Wilton's Music Hall, London's oldest music hall, and the Victorian dinosaur sculptures at Crystal Palace Park. Little Venice presents canals lined with houseboats, the Freud Museum preserves the psychoanalyst's London home, and Keats House commemorates the Romantic poet. These locations provide insights into history, architecture, and culture beyond the standard tourist circuit.
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