Tour the Natural History Museum’s new gardens, a Jurassic lark in London

The Natural History Museum in London has opened two new gardens, complete with two new dinosaurs, in time for summer visitors, offering scope for urban nature, scientific study, and – not least – outdoor play and discovery. To top it off, principles of sustainable architecture are embraced at the project’s every turn.

Serving as ‘outdoor galleries’, the Evolution Garden and the Nature Discovery Garden result from a complete transformation of the five-acre site, led by architects Feilden Fowles (also behind Yorkshire Sculpture Park's visitor centre and an education barn at Waterloo City Farm), working in collaboration with landscape architects J&L Gibbons and alongside Gitta Gschwendtner, engineers HRW and Max Fordham.

Dinosaurs and discovery at the Natural History Museum gardens

The Evolution Garden encourages visitors to stroll through time, from 2.7 billion years ago to the present day, geological era by era (Pre-Cambrian to Neogene / Quaternary), each defined by different types of rock and plants along a path that starts in a deep canyon. All bar two kinds of rock among the canyon’s 26 varieties were sourced from the UK. Also look out for an ammonite pavement, featuring fossilised sections of former seabed, from Lyme Regis.

The Nature Discovery Garden, meanwhile, is an ode to the UK’s biodiversity and wildlife habitats and a ‘living lab’ for scientists, from professionals to pond dippers. It doubles the area of native habitat previously within the museum’s grounds, increases the size of the pond area by 60 per cent (the existing pond’s water and contents, sediment and all, were decanted for the construction period and then restored to their new home), and is designed for accessibility, with a sunken pathway between the new ponds. Habitats span from wetlands to scrub and urban meadow, and are monitored through an environmental data collection programme (including sensors to record birds, bats, traffic noise and more) to support the understanding and recovery of urban nature.

In terms of buildings, two new timber and stone structures are set sensitively into the garden’s landscape, the Nature Activity Centre, and the Garden Kitchen (a café due to open later in 2024).

The team’s sustainable approach includes the use of locally sourced Douglas fir and limestone, both low-embodied-carbon building materials, as well as natural ventilation. The structures incorporate rainwater harvesting, while surface water is distributed to the plants around the garden. A zero-waste approach was taken to the construction site, with all excess material recycled.

And the all-important dinosaurs? Fern the 22m-long, 4m-high diplodocus is cast in weatherproof bronze and stands amid an evocation of a Jurassic landscape. A replica of the museum’s famous ‘Dippy’, Fern is ‘technically more anatomically accurate’, thanks to the advanced skills of the team of makers – including engineers, artisans and 3D modellers at Factum Arte, Fademesa Foundry and Structure Workshop, who worked with the museum’s palaeontologist Professor Paul Barrett.

Also seek out Fern’s garden companion, Hypsilophodon, likewise completed in bronze, and an example of a species that was native to the UK.

Happy hunting.

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