Horniman Museum

Horniman Museum and Gardens
Horniman Museum and Gardens
Established	1901
Location	100 London Rd, Forest Hill, London, SE23
Public transit access	Forest Hill
Website	Horniman Museum

The Horniman Museum is a museum in Forest Hill, South London, England. Commissioned in 1898, it opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Arts and Crafts style.^[1]

The Horniman Museum 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.^[2]

History [edit]

Museum main gallery.

The museum was founded by Frederick John Horniman, who had inherited his father's Horniman's Tea business, which by 1891 had become the world's biggest tea trading business.

The cash 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, ranging from 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.

Collections [edit]

The Horniman specialises in anthropology, natural history and musical instruments 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 unique layout.

Floor Directory [edit]

1st Floor	Ground Floor	Lower Ground Floor	Basement Floor Access from Lower Ground Floor only
Under 5s Book Zone Natural History Balcony Horniman Highlight Objects 3 Apostle Clock, England	Main Entrance CUE Building Conservatory Café Shop Education Centre Hands On Base Natural History Gallery Balcony Gallery Environment Room Textile Display Horniman Highlight Objects 1 Sand Painting, America 2 Walrus, Canada	Temporary Exhibition Gallery Music Gallery Centenary Gallery African Worlds Gallery Gallery Square Security Reception from London Road Horniman Highlight Objects 4 French Horn, England 5 Carlton Drum Kit, England 6 Torture Chair, Unknown 7 Kali with Shiva Figure, India 8 Benin Plaques, Nigeria 9 Ijele Mask, Nigeria 10 Coffin Lid, Egypt	New Aquarium

Transport connections [edit]

Service	Station/Stop	Lines/Routes served	Distance from Horniman Museum
London Buses	Horniman Museum	176, 185, 197, 356, P4
London Buses	Homrniman Park	363	260 metres walk^[3]
London Overground	Forest Hill	East London Line	650 metres walk^[4]
National Rail	Forest Hill	Southern	650 metres walk^[4]

Gardens [edit]

The bandstand overlooking the London skyline.

The museum is set in 16 acres (65,000 m²) of gardens which include the following features:

A Grade II listed conservatory from 1894 which was moved from Horniman's family house in Croydon to the present site in the 1980s.
A bandstand from 1912
A small animal enclosure
A nature trail
An ornamental garden
Plants for materials; medicines;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.

Mosaic [edit]

Humanity in the House of Circumstance

On the London Road wall of the main building is a neo-classical 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 117000 individual tesserae, it measures 10 feet by 32 feet and symbolises personal aspirations and limitations.^[5]

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.^[6]

Totem pole [edit]

The totem pole.

A 20-foot (6.1 m) red cedar totem pole 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.^[7] The pole is one of only a handful of totem poles in the United Kingdom, others being on display at the British Museum, Windsor Great Park, Bushy Park, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and at Alsford's Wharf in Berkhamsted.^[8] There is also a totem pole in the Royal Albert Memorial museum in Exeter. It is displayed in their World Cultures galleries.

CUE building [edit]

The Horniman Museum contains the CUE (Centre for Understanding the Environment) building. This opened in 1996 and was designed by local architects Architype. The building has a grass roof and was constructed from sustainable materials. It also incorporates passive ventilation.

The CUE Building.
The exterior of the conservatory
The interior of the conservatory
The bandstand from 1912
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.
Canadian walrus