Horniman Museum 30-12-2018 (09)

Horniman Museum and Garden

100 London Road

Forest Hill

LONDON

SE23 3PQ

 

Mostly Heads, Dolls and Carvings

The Museum opened in 1901 was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Arts and Crafts style. It is packed with displays of anthropology from around the globe. It has a collection of musical instruments and natural history. It has an aquarium, an activity centre. Also there are gardens, a butterfly house, an enclosure for small animals.

There are also a number of other buildings, two that are Grade II listed. The first, a conservatory, built in 1894 for the Horniman family and secondly, a bandstand with overlooks the London skyline. The conservatory reminds me of the Palm House at Kew (although much smaller) built by Richard Turner.

Frederick John Horniman had inherited his father’s tea business and was in the late 19th century, the world’s largest tea company. It was he that initiated the building of the museum. He had some thirty thousand items in his personal collection. The museum now has something in the region of three hundred and thirty thousand pieces.

If you travel diagonally right across the park you can visit Dulwich Picture Gallery, another worthwhile venue.

Done