The museum houses a 'Bone Gallery' featuring a skeleton of a killer whale.
The collection contains over 500,000 specimens of insects, birds, and fossils.
Edward Thomas Booth built his original collection to document every bird species found in Britain.
The museum features a rare, complete skeleton of an extinct Great Auk.
The displays use original Victorian-era cabinets to house the permanent collection.
The Booth Museum of Natural History is a Victorian-era collection founded in 1874 by ornithologist Edward Thomas Booth. The museum is renowned for its extensive displays of taxidermy, featuring hundreds of preserved British birds exhibited in dioramas designed to recreate their natural habitats. Beyond ornithology, the collection includes significant displays of butterflies, fossils, bones, and minerals. Interactive exhibits allow visitors to handle specimens and use microscopes to examine biological structures. The building itself is a historic structure that maintains the atmospheric, cabinet-of-curiosities aesthetic typical of 19th-century scientific collections.
The main hall, where the tiered Victorian display cases create a symmetrical and historically atmospheric composition.
Use the provided magnifying glasses and microscopes in the interactive zones to study small specimens closely.
Check the digital interactive screens for information on current temporary science exhibitions.
Focus on the basement level, which houses the extensive fossil and bone collections often overlooked by casual visitors.
Do not expect a large-scale modern digital experience; the museum intentionally celebrates its historical, static display format.
Typically closed on Thursdays and Fridays.
Maintain a quiet volume; do not touch taxidermy exhibits unless specifically marked as interactive.
