Welcome to UCL Museums & Collections
UCL's outstanding collections cover a wide variety of
disciplines, reflecting the range of the university's academic work.
Four collections - the UCL Art Museum, the Grant Museum, the Petrie Museum, and the Geology Collections - are open to the public. Other collections are primarily for teaching and research but can be seen and studied by appointment.
We support teaching and learning, undertake and support research and run a wide range of events and outreach programmes.
Upcoming events at UCL Museums & Collections
Recent blog posts
Diamonds are Forever
Wed, 01 May 2013 08:28:39 +0000
by Chris Webb Although a James Bond reference may be a tenuous link to the Petrie Museum, it is the literal, or rather chronological, duration of the shiny, super-hard compressed allotropes of carbon that had us titillated at the recent timekeeper event. On the evening of the 25th April, we welcomed back our resident Timekeeper [...]
Read more...Specimen of the Week: Week Eighty-One
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:00:39 +0000
Sometimes I think I’d quite like to be an insect. No bills, no social anxieties or inadequacies, I wouldn’t mind the commute to work because I would of course make sure I was a species that could fly, and best of all I could eat all day and no-one would care. I’d have no concerns [...]
Read more...Remember, Remember, an event to Remember
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:28:40 +0000
Guest Blogger: Chris Webb The 18th April saw another fascinating event in the Petrie Museum’s popular timekeeper series, hosted by our own timekeeper in residence, Cathy Haynes. We were asked; how easy do you find it to remember the details and order of past events? Many people through history have pondered on this… Indeed, when [...]
Read more...The Travels of Jeremy Bentham
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:41:57 +0000
We recently updated our Bentham webpages on the UCL Museums site. Among the new features is a conservation page that lists all the known inspections of the auto-icon; a Myth and Legends page that deals with some of the more popular stories concerning the auto-icon; and a new History page. This last one features a [...]
Read more...Specimen of the Week: Week Eighty
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:43:53 +0000
Yesterday I ran the London Marathon. Today, I cannot walk properly. I’m hobbling around like an old lady who put her zimmer frame in a ‘safe place’ and promptly forgot where that might be. I should explain that I was absolutely unable to do any training due to circumstances completely beyond my control, and it [...]
Read more...Highlights
UCL's Flaxman Gallery, a rare surviving 19th century sculptural installation, and the innovative Octagon Gallery below are now open to the public after a bold transformation. Artist John Flaxman's plaster study 'St Michael Overcoming Satan' now stands on a glass plinth and the Octagon Gallery has radically changed with new cases, animations and interactive screens to display treasures from UCL's museums collections.
About the museums and collections
THE PETRIE MUSEUM OF EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
About the museum:
Housing an estimated 80,000 objects, the Petrie Museum is one of the greatest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in the world.
Website:
THE GRANT MUSEUM OF ZOOLOGY
About the museum:
Retaining an air of the avid Victorian collector, the museum contains cases packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid. Dating back to 1827, the museum covers the whole of the animal kingdom.
Website:
UCL ART MUSEUM
About the museum:
The UCL Art Museum was founded in 1847 with a gift of the sculpture models of John Flaxman. The Strang Print Room operates as a study centre and houses works on paper by artists including Dürer,Rembrandt, Turner and Constable.
You can visit the museum 1pm-5pm Monday to Friday. Click here for details.
Website:
THE GALTON COLLECTION
About the collection:
Comprising around 500 scientific instruments, papers, and personal memorabilia of Sir Francis Galton F.R.S. (1822-1911), this is a popular resource for researchers, schools, and those with an interest in the history of science.
The collection can only be visited by prior appointment with the curator. Click here for details.
Website:
INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY COLLECTIONS
About the collections:
These collections include fine prehistoric
ceramics and stone artefacts, as well as
collections of Classical Greek and Roman ceramics, archaeobotanical and
zooarchaeological material, minerals and Western Asiatic material.
One-off displays and
temporary exhibitions are open to the public weekdays during term time
between 9am and 5pm.
The other collections are available by
appointment.
Website:
GEOLOGY COLLECTIONS
About the collections:
The Geology Collections contain a wealth of rocks, minerals and fossils collected globally over the last 175 years. Highlights include the Johnston-Lavis volcanological collection, the Regional Planetary Image Facility, and the UK repository for NASA images and maps.
For the collections' opening times, click here.
Website:
THE ETHNOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS
About the collections:
The Ethnography Collections hold an enormous variety of objects exemplifying material culture, textiles and artefacts from all over the world.
The Collections are only open by prior appointment with the Curator; click here for more details.
Website:
THE SCIENCE COLLECTIONS
About the collections:
The Science Collections house the wealth of scientific apparatus, equipment and memorabilia pertaining to the various scientists and their innovative work that was conducted at UCL over the last two centuries.
The Collections are only open by prior appointment with the Curator; for more details, click here.
Website
JEREMY BENTHAM AUTO-ICON
About the Auto-Icon:
Jeremy Bentham sits at the end of the South Cloisters on campus. He is usually woken up around 8am, and put to sleep at 6pm, Monday – Friday. Special out of hours viewings can be arranged.
