NHM: Large Mammals Gallery

This is two landscape photos stitched together (on top of each other).

This is not my favourite room in the museum (no, wait, it is actually perhaps my least favourite...) but it is one that people always seem to remember. Firstly, this gallery seems messy to me: the way it is arranged, and the way that the marine mammals hang haphazardly from the ceiling, just doesn't seem satisfying. Secondly, it is full of models: the blue whale is to scale (beneath the actual blue whale skeleton), but has little else to commend it. Hmmm. It seems rather tired and dated: there are some wonderful specimens on display, but the fact that they're surrounded by models makes them seem less impressive.

I'll better leave it there because otherwise this'll turn into a rant about "accessibility vs. content".

I didn't take many pictures today as I was hoping to visit the spirit collection to see the specimens preserved in jars, but I couldn't locate my friend with access (we'd made a plan, but I misunderstood and so waited in the wrong place: oops). Grrr - our plan last week fell through, so this is two failed attempts in just over a week. Perhaps we'll manage to make it work next time... Watch this space!