{"id":655651,"date":"2025-12-26T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/655651\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T10:00:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:00:18","slug":"the-natural-history-museum-in-london-is-opening-two-galleries-that-have-been-closed-to-the-public-for-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/655651\/","title":{"rendered":"The Natural History Museum In London Is Opening Two Galleries That Have Been Closed to the Public For Decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of London\u2019s<\/a> most famous museums is dusting off the keys to old rooms that haven\u2019t been seen by the public for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Natural History Museum<\/a> in South Kensington plans to open two spaces, one of which hasn\u2019t been seen by visitors since World War II. The aptly named Old General Herbarium has not been seen by Londoners since 1948 and is set to launch in 2026 as a pop-up Hidden Histories gallery.<\/p>\n

Origins gallery, which has been shut since 2004, will also reopen as a \u2018Land and Air gallery\u2019 sometime before the institution\u2019s 150th\u00a0birthday in 2031.<\/p>\n

Both spaces currently house some of the museum\u2019s huge behind-the-scenes collection. But to get the rooms ready will require a serious logistical battle and the transfer of millions of specimens, from tiny beetles to fossils.\u00a0As reported in the\u00a0Times<\/a>, the NHM has\u00a080 million specimens, and for every taxidermied animal you see on display, there are at least 3,000 more specimens in storage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Around 38 million specimens are set to move next year, some within the South Ken building and others will be moved to the Thames Valley Science Park<\/a>, a multimillion-pound research centre near Reading.<\/p>\n

The man behind the plans is Doug Gurr, who\u2019s been director of the\u00a0Natural History Museum since 2020. He has set the ambitious target to keep updating the institution by introducing \u2018one new thing a year\u2019 until 2031, the\u00a0Times\u00a0reported. The reopenings are tied to the museum\u2019s NHM Unlocked programme, which is backed by government funding and intends to show off more\u00a0of the museum\u2019s huge collections while creating scientific hub to tackle big issues like the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Find Time Out\u2019s ultimate guide to visiting the Natural History Museum here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke \u2013 from news and reviews to events and trends. Just\u00a0follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay in the loop: sign up for our\u00a0free Time Out London newsletter<\/a>\u00a0for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of London\u2019s most famous museums is dusting off the keys to old rooms that haven\u2019t been seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[2606,748,13721,393,4884,257,13722,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-655651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-categories-art","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-news-art","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}