London Museums And Art Gallery

The Horniman Museum was setup in the year 1901 by Fredrick Horniman in South London. The museum is located in Forest Hill in South London. The museum is believed to have been commissioned in the year 1898; however it only opened to the public in 1901. The Horniman Museum is designed by the great designer Charles Harrison Townsend in a most exquisite arts and crafts style. The museum has been a non-departmental public body ever since it opened. The museum is owned and administrated by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Also one very surprising fact about the museum is that the museum is constituted as a company and registered as charity under the British Law. This is amongst the most visited London Museums in the city.

History of the Horniman Museum
The Horniman Museum was founded by a great man called Fredrick John Horniman. Fredrick was a Victorian tea trader by profession. When he had first opened the museum, the museum only contained Fredrick’s collection of cultural artifacts, natural history and musical instruments. The museum like the name suggests is named after its found Frederick Horniman. Soon as a decade passed, in around 1911, another building was added to the west wing of the museum compound. The new building was also designed by Charles Harrison Townsend. The building was donated by Frederick Horniman’s son itself, Emslie Horniman. The Horniman Museum was closed in the year 1999 and underwent a drastic refurbishment. The museum re-opened to public on 14th June 2002. The Horniman Museum has also been awarded with the Chartermark National Award 2008 for Excellence Customer Service in public sector.

 

Places to be explored at the Horniman Museum
The Horniman Museum is also listed as a grade II conservatory in England. The place has a mini zoo and an aquarium which kids find very entertaining. Has a collection of musical instruments from literally from A to Z of instruments. From an Accordion to a Zuria Pepa Hornpipe, it has more than 650 different musical instruments from all over the world.

•    Natural History Gallery – Contains 250,000 objects related to natural history
•    Music Gallery – Over 8,000 musical instruments
•    Art Museums and Art Gallery- Holds 90,000 objects on Anthropology
•    Gardens - The gardens received Best Parks of the South East England region in 2005 award. Received Green Flag (Green Flag is the national standard for parks and green spaces in England and Wales) in 2007 for the fifth continuous year
•    Miniature Zoo- A popular attraction amongst the kids
•    Museum Aquarium- The Aquarium was opened in July 2006 and displays fish and oceanic objects including living displays of London pondlife, British seashore, South American rainforest and Fijian reef etc
•    Bandstand- Established in the year 1912 bandstand is a famous tourists attractions in London.

Museum Timings
Museum
The Museum is open all days of the year except from 24th to 26th December. The opening hours of the museum are 10:30 am to 5:30 pm BST all days of the week.
Garden
The Gardens are open all days of the year except for the Christmas Day. The gardens open its gates from 7:30 am to the sunset on Monday to Saturday and from 8:00am to sunset on Sundays.
Library
The Horniman Library as for now only runs on appointment basis as they believe that by that they can better anticipate your needs.

Entrance Free
There is no entrance charge or fee to the Horniman Museum or the Gardens. However, you might have to pay for some of the major temporary exhibitions being held at the museum premises.

Travelling to the museum
The Forest Hill is the nearest station and the Horniman Museum is a just a short walk from the station. You can take the rail to the Forest Hill station which just takes around 13 minutes from the London Bridge. There also other direct trains from Clapham Junction and London Victoria stations.
If you plan to travel by bus there are many buses that stop right outside the museum gates. Some of them are P4, 176, 185, 197 and 356.

The museum has transformed into a place for everyone with its latest renovation from 1999 to 2002. . In the Horniman Museum one can enjoy exploring the cultural and natural world.