Grant Museum of Zoology
Grant Museum of Zoology
4.5
Monday
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Thursday
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Friday
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Saturday
11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
About
The Grant Museum is the only remaining university zoological museum in London. It houses around 67,000 specimens, covering the whole of the Animal Kingdom. Founded in 1827 as a teaching collection, the Museum is packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid. Many of the species are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine, the Quagga, and the Dodo. The Museum relocated to a new larger space on March 2011.
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The area
Address
Neighbourhood: Bloomsbury
Snuggly nestled within Central London is academic and leafy Bloomsbury, an area that boasts walking distance access to many of London's most popular attractions. It is also home to some of Britain's most celebrated museums, including the must-see British Museum. Despite an understandable popularity with students, tourists and day trippers, vast sections of Bloomsbury retain a quiet, residential feel year round and throughout the week.
How to get there
- Euston Square • 4 min walk
- Warren St • 4 min walk
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See what travellers are saying
- Myrvin C21 contributionsNice little museumSaw this on the way to the Petrie museum. Like the Petrie, crowded, old fashioned cases and exhibits. Some steps up to the entrance. For toilets you need a key from the staff. Lots of preserved animals and skeletons. The strangest exhibit is the pot of moles. There is also a wall of mice.Visited April 2024Travelled as a coupleWritten 10 April 2024
- SkateMinsteronSeaIsle of Sheppey, United Kingdom480 contributionsWhat a fascinating place!Visited here with my granddaughter who had been before. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't this crowded room of bones and specimens which I found absolutely fascinating. It was school holidays and therefore there were a fair number of families there but on a quiet day it would be good to sit down and just immerse yourself in this historical collection.Visited April 2024Travelled with familyWritten 24 April 2024
- ShaunH290London, United Kingdom2,912 contributionsGreat for Budding Zoologists!Zoological museums, like this one, are really important for university students, and this is the only remaining teaching museum for the subject in London. Founded in Victorian times, it has managed to acquire specimens which are just not available today (e.g. a Thylacine skull (Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf)). It was revamped earlier this century so it is bright and airy, but it has kept the ideals of an academic collection. As well as classic specimens, there are touches here and there showing how it is keeping up with the latest research. Well worth visiting - but check the website for details.Visited May 2024Travelled as a coupleWritten 5 July 2024
These reviews are the subjective opinion of Tripadvisor members and not of TripAdvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.
Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.
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4.5
520 reviews
Excellent
345
Very good
152
Average
17
Poor
6
Terrible
0
Liv Z
11 contributions
Feb 2020 • Couples
We visited the museum today and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of items, from all kinds of skeletons to the small micro-organisms in the micrarium.
The staff was very helpful and friendly. We wanted to buy a few small items on our way out and noticed they only accept cash.
The staff was very helpful and friendly. We wanted to buy a few small items on our way out and noticed they only accept cash.
Written 6 February 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
emily renee
5 contributions
Mar 2020 • Friends
This museum was insanely cool. With free admission you can’t go wrong and can spend hours inside. It is really only a room but it’s packed with preserved organisms and slides to look at. You will always see something new each time you look. Wish the hour range was a bit longer but still a must visit if you like science.
Written 4 March 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Kelly K
Surrey, UK12 contributions
Aug 2021 • Family
This incredible museum is jam packed with exhibits and specimens from a few years old to 500 million. We spent a couple of hours here but could easily have spent much longer!
The volunteers, particularly Victoria, are knowledgable and informative and their passion for for both the museum and all its contents is contagious.
There are thousands of specimens all in this small but perfectly formed place.
We’ve been to most of London’s larger museum’s and as a family, all agreed that this was by far the best we’ve been to!
Well worth a visit…we will most definitely be returning!
The volunteers, particularly Victoria, are knowledgable and informative and their passion for for both the museum and all its contents is contagious.
There are thousands of specimens all in this small but perfectly formed place.
We’ve been to most of London’s larger museum’s and as a family, all agreed that this was by far the best we’ve been to!
Well worth a visit…we will most definitely be returning!
Written 26 August 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Brian T
London, UK8,047 contributions
Oct 2022 • Solo
My goodness. It was like being back in Mexico City for the ‘Day of the Dead’ celebrations. All those skulls and skeletons and bizarre creatures in old jars and more stuffed animals than you could poke a stick at. But what a curious and bizarre little spot the Grant Museum of Zoology is.
Robert Edmond Grant founded the museum in 1827 as a teaching collection for the University of London, now the University College London. It opened its doors to the public in 1996. It’s all stuffed into one huge room, like a vast antique shop of animal bits, with skeletons peering down at you from the balconies above. It’s one of the most quirky little museums I’ve been to in a long time. What a place it is. Kids would love it! I loved it.
There’s a wall made up of over 2000 tiny glass bottles filled with the skeletons of mice collected from the Scottish islands; the other 2000 are not on display!g There’s a skeleton of the extinct South African zebra known as the quagga. The last quagga died in in 1883 and the museum’s skeleton is one of only seven in existence making it the rarest in the world (but it’s missing a leg so check your attics for old bones). There’s dodo bones, and the skeleton of a huge python. There’s bottles of animal brains, wallaby heads, and a wall made up of slide specimens of microscopic animals.
Whilst the room that contains the museum is quite small, you’ll need a good hour or so to peer into all the cabinets, displays and glass jars. Not everything is labelled. However, the lass at the desk at the time of my visit was knowledgeable, and answered my numerous questions about stuff in the display that had no accompanying information.
On week days the museum is open Tuesday to Friday in the afternoon, from 13:00 - 17:00, as it is also a teaching room for the university. It’s open slightly longer on Saturday, from 11:00 - 17:00. It is closed on Sunday and Monday. The museum is free to visit. It’s a short walk from Warren Street underground station, in the Rockefeller Building at 21 University Street.
If you are looking for a quirky little museum, this is your spot.
Robert Edmond Grant founded the museum in 1827 as a teaching collection for the University of London, now the University College London. It opened its doors to the public in 1996. It’s all stuffed into one huge room, like a vast antique shop of animal bits, with skeletons peering down at you from the balconies above. It’s one of the most quirky little museums I’ve been to in a long time. What a place it is. Kids would love it! I loved it.
There’s a wall made up of over 2000 tiny glass bottles filled with the skeletons of mice collected from the Scottish islands; the other 2000 are not on display!g There’s a skeleton of the extinct South African zebra known as the quagga. The last quagga died in in 1883 and the museum’s skeleton is one of only seven in existence making it the rarest in the world (but it’s missing a leg so check your attics for old bones). There’s dodo bones, and the skeleton of a huge python. There’s bottles of animal brains, wallaby heads, and a wall made up of slide specimens of microscopic animals.
Whilst the room that contains the museum is quite small, you’ll need a good hour or so to peer into all the cabinets, displays and glass jars. Not everything is labelled. However, the lass at the desk at the time of my visit was knowledgeable, and answered my numerous questions about stuff in the display that had no accompanying information.
On week days the museum is open Tuesday to Friday in the afternoon, from 13:00 - 17:00, as it is also a teaching room for the university. It’s open slightly longer on Saturday, from 11:00 - 17:00. It is closed on Sunday and Monday. The museum is free to visit. It’s a short walk from Warren Street underground station, in the Rockefeller Building at 21 University Street.
If you are looking for a quirky little museum, this is your spot.
Written 15 October 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
LizzieAnnP
London, UK2 contributions
May 2021 • Solo
This is such a fascinating place! A little treasure trove hidden away in the UCL buildings. The staff are friendly and extremely knowledgeable and there are some really surprising specimens on show, from skeletons of the extinct thylacine to huge, preserved elephant hearts. I also thought the addition of historical context was good and extremely important - particularly the placards describing how the specimens were sourced and their links to colonialism and Empire. I would whole-heartedly recommend this museum. Well worth a trip!
Written 27 May 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Gizbab
Bethesda, MD251 contributions
May 2022 • Couples
A fantastic array of specimens presented in this collection. Definitely a shout out to the past when such displays showed what we know about animals - and is our basis to what we currently know. The room isn’t very large, but you’ll spend an hour easily just looking at what’s there. If you love biology or zoology, this is a place in your to visit list. Entrance is free. Enjoy!
Written 27 May 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Anne0319
Kingsbridge, UK253 contributions
Jul 2022 • Solo
I was so excited for this museum, it was top of my list to visit but unfortunately was thoroughly disappointed. The staff that were there when I entered weren’t very welcoming and asked why I was waiting in the foyer bit five minutes before they had opened. Five minutes before opening arrival I feel is a very reasonable amount of time considering I didn’t know what the wait time would be like for entry.
Upon entering there was hardly any information about the actual origin of the collection, very little about Grant himself and nothing really about where the collections had originated from. Very little context of Darwin etc. This is a great place to take young kids to enthuse them with specimens, however definitely not somewhere for anyone in the field to visit.
Some of the specimens weren’t labelled and/or the labels were in the wrong place. There was no order to the collections, you had freshwater in with saltwater species, starfish in with mammals…it was all very strange and is certainly not good classification for a zoology museum!
The descriptions under some of the labels was not accurate (can only speak for the marine and freshwater specimens, not any of the other collections) and there were many grammatical errors.
Sadly thoroughly disappointed as this place has so much potential.
Upon entering there was hardly any information about the actual origin of the collection, very little about Grant himself and nothing really about where the collections had originated from. Very little context of Darwin etc. This is a great place to take young kids to enthuse them with specimens, however definitely not somewhere for anyone in the field to visit.
Some of the specimens weren’t labelled and/or the labels were in the wrong place. There was no order to the collections, you had freshwater in with saltwater species, starfish in with mammals…it was all very strange and is certainly not good classification for a zoology museum!
The descriptions under some of the labels was not accurate (can only speak for the marine and freshwater specimens, not any of the other collections) and there were many grammatical errors.
Sadly thoroughly disappointed as this place has so much potential.
Written 22 July 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Anne
22 contributions
Nov 2021
I'd never seen a Micrarium before, and very likely never will again - it was magical entering the world of the Extremely Tiny! There were thousands of other things I'd never seen before too, and, luckily, someone knowledgeable on hand to answer questions. A stunning collection, and full of atmosphere too. Just the right amount of information - sometimes info can be a bit overwhelming!
Written 13 November 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
ShaunH290
London, UK2,912 contributions
May 2024 • Couples
Zoological museums, like this one, are really important for university students, and this is the only remaining teaching museum for the subject in London. Founded in Victorian times, it has managed to acquire specimens which are just not available today (e.g. a Thylacine skull (Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf)). It was revamped earlier this century so it is bright and airy, but it has kept the ideals of an academic collection. As well as classic specimens, there are touches here and there showing how it is keeping up with the latest research.
Well worth visiting - but check the website for details.
Well worth visiting - but check the website for details.
Written 5 July 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
K E
2 contributions
Feb 2020
We really enjoyed spending time here, there were a lot of specimens to look at of a wide varitey of different types of animals. The staff were helpful, and provided a trail for the children. Fascinating for us all and the highlight of our day.
Written 20 February 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
William E
Liverpool, New York
523 contributions
How long would you recommend for this museum 2-4 hours? Or more?
Written 2 March 2019
2-4 hours is a good amount of time, though you could spend longer
Written 7 April 2019
It's free addition, but you can make a donation if you want to
Written 11 March 2016
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