Wallaton Hall / Natural History Museum - Jonjon explores...

Glance: Wollaton Hall / Natural History Museum

It’s Elizabethan. It’s built in the 1580s. It’s on a hill in the middle of a park, and if you’re one of those city-people like me, look out for brown hairy stuff at a distance – they’ve got deer!

The Wollaton Hall once belonged to the Willoughby family, who over the generations had this curious interest in collecting specimens. As soon as you realize this, it would become clear as to why this Grade I-listed building is now also the flagship Natural History Museum of the area that is Nottingham. And hopefully feeling less violated when you’re greeted by this hippopotamus at the entrance door (this being a convention of “zoological” museums; check out, for example, Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology and Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences).

See for yourself: Wallaton Hall / Natural History Museum

You’ll soon realize yourself torn between two tourist foci, one having the hall as a hall, the other being the collection of wondrous creatures. Some funny curational incoherence can be found much like the Sedgwick Museum or Southeast London’s Horniman Museum, for in some inconspicuous corners there would be these old-school displays – yes literally, butterflies arranged by paper pins to be unriddled by yellowing, typewritten cardboards. But then there’s effectively a third, in case you’re more interested in the living than the dead – there are these insect tanks on the upper floor.

And you’re really more interested in the family and the heritage, do start with the Cassandra Room (clip) on ground floor. There, beautiful paper-sculptures tell the history of the family.

Now get down the hill to find your favourite deer.

When you feel like life is too short, come join my 25-min museum tour. Or find yourself in my novel, check out the photo of the day and finish it off with a secret prize.

Tags - in_depth_tourism; museum; London_writer; London_travel; indie_writer; independent_blogger