London’s Pocket Parks: Natural History Museum, SW7

A brand new pocket park has opened in central London, and it’s unlike any you might have seen before — it has a dinosaur in the middle.

The pocket park sits in front of the Natural History Museum, replacing mainly plain lawns with ferns, ponds, and lots of wildlife. The Museum’s previous Wildlife Garden around the side of the building has also been extended to double the area of native habitats within the grounds, and the pond area has been increased by 60% to better support the diversity of animal and plant life.

The best way to arrive at the garden isn’t from the street but from the subway, as you can then walk up a long slope surrounded by rocks as the museum looms out from between the planting that’s been added to the space.

And then, in front of you, a glowing dinosaur.

This is “Fern”, the recently christened bronze cast of the museum’s Diplodocus, standing within the evolution garden, which tells the story of, umm, well, evolution, from the earliest of creatures to the modern day.

Apart from a park to visit and as an entry to the museum, the space is also educational, with a lot of signs around the place telling the history of the animals and plants that might have lived hundreds of millions of years ago.

A nice touch are the brass inlays in the pavements showing long-since extinct animals. Also nice are the horns dotted around the park, which either allow you to peer in to see something at the bottom or play sounds of insects you might expect in the area.

A wooded path fills one corner, and if the traffic noise wasn’t so noticeable, it would feel very much like you’re walking in a damp forest.

The ponds are wildlife-friendly, so they may superficially look dank and mucky, but that’s how ponds are supposed to look. A snail was already exploring its surroundings along the sunken path that runs through the ponds.

There’s a lot of seating and still spaces in some of the benches for future bench sponsors to have their names added.

One niggle is that the park is, of necessity, split by the stone of the museum’s grand entrance, and it might not be obvious that there is a second half of the natural park to explore. Maybe some signage will arrive later. As a new garden, it’ll take time for the plants to grow and riot over the landscape, but it’s already a fairly impressive space to visit, sit down in and relax after a busy museum visit.

However, the combination of nature reserve, park and education has cleverly expanded the museum’s effective size. For a museum in central London to be able to add 5 acres of extra space is quite the achievement, and this one is unlike the contents of the building behind, is a living exhibition space.

The pocket park will be open for free daily from 10am to 5:50pm.