UCL Museums top in London

The magazine's celebration of the capital's lesser-known gems said of the UCL Grant Museum: "If you're not fazed by the skeletons of a walrus, a baboon and a giant iguanadon that face the entrance, you'll find many a fascinating animal specimen here (quite a lot of them preserved in glass jars, and plenty of skeletons). Part of UCL, it might at first appear chaotically cluttered, but specimens are carefully categorised into evolutionary groups. Best exhibit: A dodo (whose bones are stored in a box and laid out in specially cutout padding)."

The UCL Petrie Museum was lauded as "the British Museum without the crowds": "There's a scholarly air here, but don't let that put you off. With its 80,000 exhibits, the Petrie (pronounced pee-tree) is bursting at its seams with items from the Nile valley dating back 5,000 years. Unlike Howard Carter, who excavated Tutankhamun's tomb and was taught by Petrie, Petrie was more interested in everyday Egyptian objects and there are pots, bowls, jewellery, combs, tiles and so on, on display. Best exhibits: Mummified head, with hair."

The UCL Petrie Museum, along with some of UCL's many other fascinating collections, is preparing to move to a brand new building, the UCL Institute for Cultural Heritage, for which fundraising is currently underway.

• Links:
• UCL Museums and Collections
• London's 50 best unsung museums