Horniman Museum
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox museum The Horniman Museum and Gardens is a museum in Forest Hill, London, England. Commissioned in 1898, it opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Modern Style.<ref name="Pevsner">Template:Cite book</ref> It has displays of anthropology, natural history and musical instruments, and is known for its large collection of taxidermied animals. The building is Grade II* listed.<ref>Template:NHLE</ref>
It is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and is constituted as a company and registered charity under English law.<ref>Template:EW charity</ref> In 2022 the museum won Museum of the Year, an award made by the Art Fund.
History
The museum was founded in 1901 by Frederick John Horniman. Frederick had inherited his father's Horniman's Tea business, which by 1891 had become the world's biggest tea trading business.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The proceeds from the business allowed Horniman to indulge his lifelong passion for collecting, and which after travelling extensively had some 30,000 items in his various collections, covering natural history, cultural artefacts and musical instruments.
In 1911, an additional building to the west of the main building, originally containing a lecture hall and library, was donated by Frederick Horniman's son Emslie Horniman. This was also designed by Townsend. A new extension, opened in 2002, was designed by Allies and Morrison.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2007, the museum held the Walking with Beasts Exhibition. The exhibition featured life-sized models of extinct animals featured in the BBC series of the same name, such as Smilodon and the Woolly Mammoth.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The museum won the Art Fund's Museum of the Year award in 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In November 2022, the museum returned a collection of 72 items that were stolen from the Kingdom of Benin, including Benin Bronzes, to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Collections
The Horniman specialises in anthropology, natural history and musical instruments<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and has a collection of 350,000 objects. The ethnography and music collections have Designated status. One of its most famous exhibits is the large collection of stuffed animals. It also has an aquarium noted for its Template:Clarify span.
Floor directory
| 1st Floor | Ground Floor | Lower Ground Floor | Basement Floor File:Cmbox content.png Access by stairs and lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5s Book Zone Natural History Balcony Horniman Highlight Objects 3 Apostle Clock, Germany |
Main Entrance CUE Building Conservatory Café Shop Education Centre Hands On Base Natural History Gallery Balcony Gallery Environment Room Horniman Highlight Objects 1 Sand Painting, America 2 Walrus, Canada |
World Gallery
Temporary Exhibition Gallery Horniman Highlight Objects |
Aquarium |
Transport connections
| Service | Station/Stop | Lines/Routes served | Distance from Horniman Museum |
|---|---|---|---|
| London Buses Template:Rail-interchange | Horniman Museum Template:Access icon | 176, 185, 197, 356, P4 | |
| Horniman Park Template:Access icon | 363 | Template:Convert walk<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | |
| London Overground Template:Rail-interchange | Template:Stnlink Template:Access icon | Windrush line | Template:Convert walk<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| National Rail Template:Rail-interchange | Southern |
Gardens
The museum is set in Template:Convert of gardens, which include the following features:
- A Grade II listed conservatory from 1894 which was moved from Hornimans' family house in Croydon to the present site in the 1980s.
- A bandstand from 1912
- An enclosure for small animals
- A Butterfly House
- A nature trail
- An ornamental garden
- Plants for materials, medicines, and foods and dyes
- A sound garden with large musical instruments for playing
- A new building, the Pavilion, for working on materials that are outside of the collections, such as from the gardens.
The gardens are also Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.<ref name=NHLEGarden>Template:NHLE</ref>
Mosaic
On the London Road wall of the main building is a neoclassical mosaic mural entitled Humanity in the House of Circumstance, designed by Robert Anning Bell and assembled by a group of young women over the course of 210 days. Composed of more than 117,000 individual tesserae, it measures Template:Convert and symbolises personal aspirations and limitations.<ref name="saatchi">Template:Cite web</ref>
The three figures on the far left represent Art, Poetry and Music, standing by a doorway symbolising birth, while the armed figure represents Endurance. The two kneeling figures represent Love and Hope, while the central figure symbolises Humanity. Charity stands to the right bearing figs and wine, followed by white-haired Wisdom holding a staff, and a seated figure representing Meditation. Finally, a figure symbolising Resignation stands by the right-hand doorway, which represents death.<ref name="victorianweb">Template:Cite web</ref>
Totem pole
A Template:Convert totem pole, carved from red cedar, stands outside the museum's main entrance. It was carved in 1985 as part of the American Arts Festival by Nathan Jackson, a Tlingit native Alaskan. The carvings on the pole depict figures from Alaskan legend of a girl who married a bear, with an eagle (Jackson's clan crest) at the top.<ref name="totem">Template:Cite web</ref> The pole is one of only a handful of totem poles in the United Kingdom, others being on display at the British Museum, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Windsor Great Park, Bushy Park, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, and at Alsford's Wharf in Berkhamsted.<ref>Template:Cite book p.3</ref> There is also a totem pole in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. It is displayed in their World Cultures galleries.
CUE building
The Horniman Museum contains the CUE (Centre for Understanding the Environment) building. This opened in 1996 and was designed by local architects Archetype using methods developed by Walter Segal. The building has a grass roof and was constructed from sustainable materials. It also incorporates passive ventilation.
Gallery
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Museum main gallery -
The CUE Building -
The exterior of the conservatory -
The interior of the conservatory -
The bandstand from 1912 -
The bandstand viewed from below in July 2013 -
The Horniman totem pole -
A preserved fruit bat showing how the skeleton fits inside its skin -
A preserved turtle skeleton showing how the carapace connects with the rest of the skeleton
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Canadian walrus
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The Natural History Gallery with the overstuffed walrus replaced with a giraffe model in July 2013
See also
References
External links
- Template:Official website
- Forest Hill image gallery
- urban75 photo feature
- Review and Visitor Information for the Horniman Museum
- The Horniman Museum on Museums London directory of museums in London
Template:London museums Template:Department for Culture, Media and Sport
- Pages with broken file links
- Grade II listed parks and gardens in London
- Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Lewisham
- Museums sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
- Natural history museums in London
- Charities based in London
- Musical instrument museums in England
- Anthropology museums
- Asian art museums in the United Kingdom
- Music museums in London
- Museums in the London Borough of Lewisham
- Museums established in 1901
- Grade II* listed buildings in the London Borough of Lewisham
- Grade II* listed museum buildings
- Arts and Crafts architecture in England
- Art Nouveau architecture in London
- Art Nouveau museum buildings
- Organisations based in the London Borough of Lewisham
- 1901 establishments in England
- Physical museums with virtual catalogues and exhibits