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Natural History Museum
Location Cromwell Road, South Kensington, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England
Near The Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Albert Hall
Built 1873–1881
Architect Alfred Waterhouse, taking over from Captain Francis Fowke (died 1865); built by George Baker and Son of Lambeth
Style Romanesque Revival, based on German (Rhineland) Romanesque: terracotta over an iron and steel frame
Type Museum
Original use The natural history departments of the British Museum ("British Museum (Natural History)")
Status In use as a museum. Listed building
Features Tower, Iron and glass construction

Images to be added by the owner.

Overview

The Natural History Museum stands on Cromwell Road in South Kensington, on part of the site of the 1862 International Exhibition. Its front is about 207 m (675 ft) long and is covered entirely in buff and blue-grey terracotta, moulded with plants and animals, with two tall towers over the central entrance. Inside, the great central hall (Hintze Hall since 2014) is roofed in iron and glass, and its ceiling is painted with panels of plants.

The building was the idea of the naturalist Richard Owen, who wanted the British Museum's natural history collections to have a home of their own. The 1864 design competition was won by Captain Francis Fowke, who also designed the 1862 Exhibition building and the first plans for the Royal Albert Hall. After Fowke died in 1865, the young architect Alfred Waterhouse took over and redesigned the museum in a Romanesque style. It opened on 18 April 1881 and is often called a "cathedral of nature".

The main story

The museum was built to move the natural history collections out of the crowded British Museum in Bloomsbury, on land in South Kensington that had held the 1862 International Exhibition.

  • 1859 – Richard Owen, superintendent of the British Museum's natural history departments, proposes a separate building for them. A sketch plan by Owen from 1859 is said to underlie the later design.
  • 1862 – The International Exhibition is held on the site, in a building designed by Fowke facing Cromwell Road.
  • 1863 – Parliament debates buying the Exhibition building and its land for the British Museum's collections. The proposal to buy the building is rejected, but the purchase of part of the site is approved. The building is taken down in 1864 and its materials go to build Alexandra Palace.
  • 1864 – Francis Fowke wins the design competition with a Renaissance-style design.
  • December 1865 – Fowke dies before work starts.
  • 1866 – Alfred Waterhouse, then little known outside Manchester, is appointed to carry out Fowke's design. Over the next years he changes it substantially, from Renaissance to German Romanesque, and decides to face the whole building in terracotta, which resists London's soot better than stone.
  • 1871–1872 – The plans are revised, with further cuts to save money.
  • February 1873 – The building contract is let to George Baker and Son of Lambeth, and building begins. The terracotta is made by Gibbs and Canning of Tamworth, who also made the terracotta for the Royal Albert Hall.
  • 1873–1880 – The building goes up on an iron and steel frame, hidden behind the terracotta. The towers are designed as part of a ventilation system that draws fresh air through the building.
  • 18 April 1881 – The museum opens to the public. The painted ceilings of the central hall and north hall are unveiled at the opening. The terracotta decoration is said to show living species on one wing and extinct species on the other.
  • 1883 – Owen retires, two years after the opening.
  • 1963 – The museum becomes independent of the British Museum, with its own board of trustees.
  • 1986 – The neighbouring Geological Museum is merged into it (now the Earth Galleries).
  • 1992 – It's officially renamed the Natural History Museum.
  • 2002–2009 – The Darwin Centre is built at the back of the museum for the collections and scientists.
  • 2014 – The central hall is renamed Hintze Hall.

Conservation

  • The museum, with its front lodge, gates, piers and railings of about 1881, is a listed building (Historic England list entry 1080675).
  • The terracotta front has been cleaned and repaired over the years, and the museum is planning further restoration of the Waterhouse building's façade.
  • Recent research on site has found much of Waterhouse's original ventilation system still in place, under the basement floors and in the attics.

The alternative view

The official account is of a museum designed by a Victorian architect who took a dead man's plans and turned them into a Romanesque "cathedral" for science. Looked at from an "old world" perspective, several things invite a second look: a third building linked to Captain Fowke on land cleared of an exhibition hall, a medieval church style applied to a modern museum, a decorated skin over a hidden metal frame, towers that moved air through the building, and a ground floor raised above a basement. Each point below carries an evidence label: Documented, Observed, Reported or Speculative (see the research brief).

On the site of a vanished exhibition hall

Documented – The museum stands on part of the site of the 1862 International Exhibition building, which was taken down in 1864, two years after the exhibition, and rebuilt as Alexandra Palace in north London. That palace burned down 16 days after it opened. Parliament debated buying the 1862 building to house the British Museum's collections, and turned it down. So the land under the museum was first used for a giant exhibition hall that was quickly dismantled, moved and later lost to fire.

How to test it: compare the plans of the 1862 building with the museum's plan and foundations. Did the museum reuse any of the exhibition building's foundations, basements or drains? The Survey of London (volume 38) and the 1863 Hansard debates are the place to start.

Captain Fowke again

Documented – Fowke designed the 1862 Exhibition building, the Royal Horticultural Society's conservatory, the first plans for the Royal Albert Hall and the winning design for this museum, all within a few hundred metres of each other in about five years. He died in December 1865, before any of the last three was finished or built. Two of the great buildings of South Kensington were then completed by other men to designs that were changed after his death. The alternative view asks how much of the final buildings was really his, and whether his death left convenient gaps in the record of who designed what (Speculative). See the Royal Albert Hall entry.

A cathedral for science

Documented (style) / Speculative (interpretation) – Waterhouse based the building on German Romanesque churches of the Rhineland, with round arches, banded stonework, twin towers and a long nave-like central hall. It's often called a "cathedral of nature" (the phrase is credited to both Owen and Waterhouse; The Times called it "a true Temple of Nature" in 1881). In this project's "shared worldwide architecture" theme, the question is why a 19th-century science museum took the form of an 11th- or 12th-century church. The ordinary answer is that the Victorians chose historic styles deliberately for their meaning, and Owen is often said to have wanted the building to present nature as God's creation. Comparing its plan and details with Romanesque churches such as Speyer and Maria Laach would show how closely it copies them.

A decorated skin over a hidden frame

Documented – Behind the terracotta, the museum is built on an iron and steel frame, a very modern method for the 1870s. The terracotta is a facing, made in moulds by Gibbs and Canning and fixed to the structure. So the building looks like a medieval masonry church but is actually a modern framed structure.

Points to weigh up:

  • This is the opposite of an older building being re-dated. A hidden metal frame is a sign of new 1870s construction, not of an ancient structure reclaimed.
  • It shows how the detail was achieved so quickly. Moulded terracotta could be made in a factory and repeated, so the vast amount of carved-looking decoration didn't have to be cut by hand on site. This answers a common argument that the decoration on such buildings is too detailed for the time and workforce available.

The same pattern of a modern frame behind a historic-looking face appears at Tower Bridge (1886–94, on the research list), where steel is hidden inside "medieval" stone towers.

Towers that breathe

Documented (ventilation) / Speculative (energy theme) – The two central towers and the other towers were designed by Waterhouse as part of a ventilation system. A study of the building describes them as exhausts, including novel "multi-sleeved" towers that Waterhouse called "thermosyphonic", which drew warm air up and out and pulled fresh air in through the building. Recent investigations under the basement floor and in the attics found much of this system still in place.

For this project's "lost energy technology" theme, this is an important finding. Towers on 19th-century buildings are sometimes said to have served a hidden technological purpose. Here the towers really did have a technical function, but it is fully documented and ordinary: moving air without fans. This is a useful example for testing similar claims about other buildings: before concluding that a tower had a lost purpose, check whether it was a ventilation or chimney stack.

Raised above a basement

Documented (basement) / Speculative (mud flood) – The listing describes the ground floor as raised above basement workshops, storage areas and laboratories, and the main entrance is reached up a flight of steps (Observed). In mud flood research, raised entrances and basements with windows are often taken as signs that the ground has risen around an older building. Here the basement is on the original plans and was built as workrooms, which is a common Victorian arrangement for museums and public buildings. No evidence of a buried former ground floor has been found.

How to test it: compare Waterhouse's drawings and early photographs of the front with the building today. Check whether the basement windows face onto open light wells or onto banked earth, and whether the street level of Cromwell Road has been raised since 1881.

Living and extinct

Reported – The terracotta decoration is said to show living species on the west side of the building and extinct species on the east. The sources reached so far agree on the split but don't all say clearly which wing is which. It's a deliberate design meant to show the order of nature, and it was set out by Owen, who opposed Darwin's theory of evolution. It's included here as a detail to confirm rather than as an anomaly.

Dates and inscriptions

Speculative – No date stones, foundation stones or inscriptions on the building have been checked yet for the letters in dates argument. The terracotta panels, the entrance and the gates should be searched for dated marks, and for how the years are written.

Anomaly log

Anomaly Evidence Label Source
Built on the site of the dismantled 1862 Exhibition building Site history; Hansard 1863 Documented Hansard; Grace's Guide
Winning designer (Fowke) died before building began Histories of the museum Documented Natural History Museum; Nature
Design changed from Renaissance to German Romanesque after Fowke's death Histories of the museum Documented Nature; Natural History Museum
Medieval church form used for a science museum The building Documented Natural History Museum
Iron and steel frame hidden behind terracotta Histories of the building Documented A View on Cities; Natural History Museum
Towers designed as ventilation exhausts ("thermosyphonic") Architectural study; on-site investigation Documented arq (Cambridge University Press)
Ground floor raised above a basement; entrance up steps Listing description; visible on site Documented / Observed Historic England
Living species on one wing, extinct on the other Secondary sources Reported Gibbs and Canning (Wikipedia); A View on Cities
Same terracotta maker as the Royal Albert Hall Histories of both buildings Documented Wikipedia; Royal Albert Hall entry

Timeline check

What we know: the contract was let in February 1873 and the museum opened on 18 April 1881, about 8 years and 2 months later. The front is about 207 m long, the building has a basement and two main floors with galleries, and the central towers are often given as about 58 m (190 ft) high.

The working:

  • Time: eight years is a long build by Victorian standards. Comparable buildings of the period include the Royal Albert Hall (about 4 years) and St Pancras's Midland Grand Hotel (1868–76, about 8 years).
  • Decoration: the terracotta was made in moulds at Tamworth and delivered ready to fix, so the decoration didn't need large numbers of carvers on site.
  • Structure: the iron and steel frame would have been made by ironworks and erected on site, carrying the floors and roofs.
  • Money: the plans were cut back in 1871–72 to save money, which suggests the budget was closely controlled by the Treasury and Parliament.

Working still needed:

  1. The total cost and the workforce, from the Office of Works records and The Builder.
  2. The weight and number of terracotta blocks, from Gibbs and Canning or Waterhouse's records.
  3. The order in which the parts of the building were completed between 1873 and 1880.

Verdict for now: Plausible. The building took over eight years, used factory-made decoration and a modern frame, and is well recorded in the architect's drawings, which survive. The stronger questions for the alternative view concern the site, Fowke's role and the choice of style, not the speed of the build.

Comparison buildings

Building Where Built Link
1862 International Exhibition building South Kensington, London, UK 1861–62 Stood on the museum's site; demolished 1864, materials used for Alexandra Palace
Royal Albert Hall London, UK 1867–71 First designed by Fowke; same terracotta maker
Alexandra Palace London, UK 1873; rebuilt 1875 Built from the 1862 Exhibition building's materials
Oxford University Museum of Natural History Oxford, UK 1855–60 Earlier "cathedral of science", Gothic, iron and glass (not yet on the research list)
Manchester Town Hall Manchester, UK 1868–77 By Waterhouse (on the research list)
St Pancras London, UK 1865–76 Revival-style front of the same years, with a modern structure
Speyer Cathedral Speyer, Germany c. 1030–1061 The kind of Rhineland Romanesque church Waterhouse drew on
Cologne Cathedral Cologne, Germany 1248–1880 Rhineland church finished in the same years as the museum was built

What would support the alternative view

  • Evidence that the museum reused foundations, basements or other structures from the 1862 Exhibition building or earlier buildings on the site
  • Gaps or contradictions in Waterhouse's drawings and the Office of Works records
  • Older masonry or construction methods behind the terracotta that don't fit an 1870s build
  • Basement windows that look onto banked-up earth rather than designed light wells

What would weaken it

  • Waterhouse's drawings, which survive in quantity, and the Office of Works contracts and accounts
  • Construction-period photographs and reports in The Builder and the Illustrated London News
  • Gibbs and Canning's records of the terracotta
  • The published investigations of the ventilation system, which explain the towers

Open questions for contributors

  • Fowke's design: How much of Fowke's plan survives in the building as built?
  • The 1862 foundations: Did any part of the 1862 Exhibition building's foundations or basements survive under the museum?
  • Living and extinct: Which wing has the living species and which the extinct? Is the split consistent across the building?
  • Cost and workforce: What did the building cost, and how many people built it?
  • Towers: Exactly how high are the central towers, and which towers were part of the ventilation system?
  • Basement: Do the basement windows look onto light wells or onto earth? Has the ground level along Cromwell Road changed since 1881?
  • The "cathedral" phrase: Did Owen or Waterhouse first call it a cathedral?
  • Listing: What grade is the museum listed at?

Leads to follow up

  • Waterhouse's drawings: many survive, at the RIBA Drawings Collection and in the museum's own archive.
  • Natural History Museum archives: records of the building, Owen's papers and photographs of construction.
  • The National Archives: Office of Works files on the museum's design, contracts and costs.
  • Survey of London, volume 38: the chapter on the Natural History Museum (British History Online).
  • Hansard, 1863: the debates on buying the 1862 Exhibition building and land.
  • Period journals: The Builder, the Illustrated London News and The Times for 1873–81.
  • Ventilation research: the article "Delivering the well-tempered institution of 1873" in arq (Cambridge University Press), and work by Tanis Hinchcliffe on the building.
  • Mark Girouard's book Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum (1981).
  • Historic England: list entry 1080675.

Research notes

Images

Images will be added by the owner. The most useful for this entry would be:

  • the museum under construction in 1873–81, especially the frame before the terracotta was fixed
  • the 1862 International Exhibition building on the same site
  • Fowke's 1864 competition design, for comparison with what was built
  • the front and entrance steps in the 1880s and today, to compare ground levels
  • the basement windows and what they face onto
  • the towers, including any view of the ventilation system inside
  • close-ups of the terracotta animals and plants on each wing

Sources