London’s Natural History Museum is opening up a hidden gallery for the first time in 80 years
Anyone getting Night at the Museum flashbacks?
In what sounds like the start of an Indiana Jones movie, London’s Natural History Museum is cracking open a previously sealed secret gallery that has been off limits to the public since World War Two. Instead of secret enigmas, buried treasure, or soon-to-be-reanimated extinct species, the gallery will be showing a new exhibition, all about humans' relationship with nature.
Called Nature and Us, the exhibition opens up on 16th September and will explore our evolving relationship with the natural world through 50 remarkable objects. The space was previously an osteology gallery in the 1890s, with mammals from around the world displayed and studied.
Closed to the public since 1943, this gallery will initially reopen for 18 months, with Nature and Us being the primary exhibition during that run. According to the museum, some of the highlights and key specimens appearing in Nature and Us include a miniature model of a Crystal Palace dinosaur, illustrating how early scientists and artists imagined prehistoric life; Jenny, a Victorian skeleton of a monk seal that reveals how wild animals were once exploited for entertainment; a bryozoan-encrusted Star Wars toy from the 1980s, showing how everyday objects can acquire new meanings through nature and time; and a 400,000-year-old handaxe whose discovery transformed our understanding of when humans first existed.
Visitors will also be able to touch a replica jaw of one of Britain's earliest known domesticated dogs, dating to around 14,300 years ago and offering evidence of the long relationship between people and pooches.
The exciting announcement is part of NHM150, a transformation of the Museum that will open a new or revitalised gallery each year leading up to its 150th anniversary in 2031.
The space can be found on the second floor of the museum, and has been used for different features across the years. After the Museum's original herbarium was damaged during the Second World War, the gallery was repurposed to house the botanical collections and closed to the public. The gallery's original wooden herbarium cabinets remain in place, reflecting its history as a working scientific collections space.
Skip the search — follow Shortlist on Google News to get our best lists, news, features and reviews at the top of your feeds!
