Natural History Museum

Our trip to the Natural History Museum was primarily to see the butterflies. The kids found the case with them hatching fascinating. When one feel off, because it's wings were to heavy and wet, they frantically called the keeper to rescue it and put it back on the shelf where it would hang to dry out it's wings.

And of course we had to go into the museum where I took photos for research purposes.

I love these old wooden display cabinets, all the displays look fresh and newly arranged.

I also like the way that new technology has been incorporated into these old cabinets.

I think this one shows you all the things insects feed on.

Spooky shadows

Manchester Hermit

Visit the Manchester Hermit blog and explore the thoughts of the Manchester Hermit, who is living in isolation for 40 days and nights in The Manchester Museum's Gothic tower.

Just been reading through this blog and the comments so far. The Hermit has chosen objects from the museum for his own Cabinet of Curiosities and he is choosing an object each day, if no one puts forward a valid reason to keep the object it will be destroyed. 

The comments on the first object, a skull, are interesting and I'm curious to see how they compare to comments about man made objects or inventions, I'm sure they won't provoke the some type of response.

I am not in favour of destroying anything (you never know when you might need it) but an object stored away in a museum vault is as good as, it may never been seen again..................

Why are the objects in the store rooms, someone thought they were worthy of being in a museum, someone else has decided that they aren't as important as other objects

Horniman Museum

taken from the Horniman Museum website:

History of the Museum
Victorian tea trader Frederick John Horniman began collecting specimens and artefacts from around the World in the 1860's. Horniman's key mission was to bring the world to Forest Hill and he opened part of his family house to the public so they could view the riches he had collected. As the collections increased they outgrew the family home and in 1898 Horniman commissioned Charles Harrison Townsend to design a new Museum.
The Museum opened in 1901 and was dedicated with the surrounding land as a free gift to the people of London by Frederick Horniman forever for their recreation instruction and enjoyment. The original collections comprised natural history specimens, cultural artefacts and musical instruments. Over the last 100 years the Museum has added significantly to the original bequest with Horniman's original collections comprising only 10 per cent of current ethnography and musical instrument holdings.
Further buildings were added to the original during the course of the last century notably in 1911 when a new building was donated by Frederick's son Emslie. In 1999 the Museum demolished some of the later additions and embarked on a Centenary Development to create a new extension and several associated spaces, and opened in June 2002.

The Horniman is our local museum and I've been visiting it for nearly 10 years. There is a permanent natural history display and in the Centenary Gallery there is an interesting display about the collections and how they are clasified. I had a quick visit with my son recently and took some photos but will have to go back soon for a longer visit.

These type of displays are a favorite with my children, many an hour has been spent studying the life cycles of various animals.