Grant Museum of Zoology
skeletons, jars and a glowing wall
A wonderfully old-fashioned, slightly eerie university museum near Euston, free, crammed with skeletons, jars and a glowing wall of tiny specimens called the Micrarium.
Free to visit · Bloomsbury · Euston Square · WC1E 6DE
Opening: Check UCL listings · typically afternoons, closed weekends
The Grant is UCL's zoology museum, one cramped Victorian room near Euston packed floor to ceiling with around sixty-eight thousand specimens, and it is gloriously, atmospherically old-school. Skeletons hang overhead, jars of preserved creatures line the cases, and it is all free.
It has cult objects. A jar of moles, all crammed together, that the internet fell in love with. The skeleton of a quagga, a half-zebra hunted to extinction, one of only a handful left in the world. And the Micrarium, a tiny mirrored alcove with two thousand microscope slides backlit on the walls, a glowing little shrine to the smallest animals.
It is run by a university rather than a big institution, so it feels personal and curious rather than slick, the sort of free hidden gem that the people who know about it get quietly evangelical over.
Getting there: Part of UCL on University Street, a couple of minutes from Euston Square or Warren Street.
Best time to go: A weekday afternoon. It is one room, free, and rarely busy, so you can take your time among the jars.
Insider tip: Find the Micrarium, the little backlit alcove of microscope slides at the back. It was built because most animals are tiny and museums only ever show the big ones, and standing inside that glowing wall of minute creatures is the strangest, loveliest free minute in the place.
Official site: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/grant-museum-zoology
Free things to do in London · London Free Guide