London’s Natural History Museum: From the Outside

It was a beautifully sunny Sunday with vibrant blue skies.

I popped into Paul for my daily English breakfast tea with a splash of milk and splurged on an apricot and custard pastry in celebration of the Winter sun.

Camera and breakfast in hand, I headed toward the Natural History Museum.

I had no intention of going inside. Not that day. I’ve been before and it’s a fabulous place to explore, but not on the weekend.

If you haven’t been, I’d recommend it. It’s free too.

You can spend hours lost inside, and I wanted to enjoy the unusually nice day.

So I found a spot for people watching, where I could soak up a few rays and enjoy my tea and apricot pastry.

The Natural History Museum is one of the most architecturally stunning places I’ve seen and I couldn’t resist taking some photos before I continued on my walk.

There’s an immense amount of detail in the façade.

There’s gargoyles perched along the front of the building and an incredibly intricate series of columns at the top of the steps to the main entrance.

Above the columns are arches created the particular style of a Romanesque design.

There is varied colour in the bricks.

Even along the edge of the property where it touches the edge of Cromwell Road, attention has been paid to the detail.

There are animal reliefs in the columns that support the fence and gates.

The gates are full of curlicues.

You can’t walk down Cromwell Road without rubber necking to check out this photogenic marvel.

We were talking a few days ago about how easy it is to take advantage of living in such a massive city, to walk by major icons of London without a second glance; similar to the way I grew up 10 minutes from Niagara Falls, but we only really visited when we had guests.

I realized then, that I pass this building almost every day yet in the seven years I’ve lived here, I’ve never even taken photographs. So this is my little nod to the architecture of the Natural History Museum, which has long since distracted me from my thoughts on Cromwell Road.