Natural History Museum Gardens and Wildlife Garden

Following the success of the Great Exhibition of 1851 Prince Albert wished to promote the application of science and art to industry with profits from the Exhibition. Government matched the surplus and the land for the site was purchased. Richard Owen, later Sir Richard, a professor of anatomy, was a key figure in the Natural History Museum's foundation. As superintendent of the natural history department at the British Museum, he advocated a purpose-built museum, which was supported by the Prime Minister, Gladstone. A competition for the new building was initially won by Captain Francis Fowke, who was architect to the South Kensington Museum now the Victoria & Albert Museum (q.v.). Fowke died in 1865 and in 1866 Albert Waterhouse was commissioned to realise his design. Due to a delay with funding, Waterhouse was then re-commissioned and made new plans, finally approved in c.1872. The building was completed by 1880, the largest building of the time that was entirely clad in terracotta. It was finally separated from the British Museum by Act of Parliament in 1963.

The frontage onto Cromwell Road is set back behind fine railings and piers with areas of landscaping either side of the central semicircular forecourt. There are fine plane trees and shrubbery to the railings, with a large area of lawn to the west and a number of sculptural features. In 1995 a new Wildlife Garden of 0.4 hectares was created in the south-west corner of the formal gardens, as the Museum's first living exhibition to show the potential for wildlife conservation in the inner city and an important educational resource and research facility. It contains a range of habitats such as fen, reedbed, ponds, hedgerow, heathland, woodland, meadow and chalk downland grazed by a number of sheep. It was designed by Mark Loxton with Dennis Vickers, ecologist.