by Patricia Herbig
The Darwin Centre was built as an adjunct to the Natural History Museum to house and give access to the 22 million specimens collected and received by the NHM. Although it is part of the museum, the Darwin Centre’s main focus is research (when we were there last week, scientists were completing a 3 year study of the effects on marine life in the Gulf after the first Gulf War).
It is imperative to book a tour. It is possible to do this on-site and maybe get a tour later in the day, but this will be more difficult to do during public and school holidays. Tours last about 30 minutes and are guided by a member of the research staff. You will be asked to store in a locked locker any bags or lose articles of clothing and will be given a lab coat to wear. The guides are knowledgeable and willing to answer questions.
There are 27 kilometres of shelves ranged over 6 floors in the Darwin Centre as well as a large number of large metal storage containers in the basement. The specimens come from as long ago as the 1750s right up to today. All are stored in glass jars that need to be topped up regularly with alcohol to ensure their continued existence. You will not, of course, see them all; the guides pick an area and show some specimens from that section.
While children tend to be the ones we think of when we go to museums of this kind, I found it at least as interesting as my children did. The Darwin Centre has plans to extend the facilities by 2008 and add another building which will house their insects and larger mammals.
To book a tour, call: 020-7942-6128. Tours are given M-Sa, 10.00 – 17.30, Su 11.00 – 17.30 and are free. For additional information: www.nhm.ac.uk/darwincentre
When I have some time on my own, I tend to make my way to a bookshop. Not only are they usually warm, dry and usually not too crowded, but they offer a certain comfort that you don’t often get from other kinds of shops. Of course there is always a Waterstone’s – the huge, find-every-book-that-you-could-dream-of-wanting bookshop. There’s one in Picadilly, just off Picadilly Circus. But there is another very special bookshop just down the street, which, despite being owned by Waterstone’s has retained its olde worlde charm. Hatchard’s, at 187 Picadilly, comes by its charm honestly from being open since 1782. They have been offering the reader or browser a wonderful selection of books for over 200 years.