The Eton Natural History Museum is Eton’s longest-running museum and Berkshire’s only dedicated museum of natural history. It was set up in 1875 to house the Thackeray Collection of British Birds and has grown with donations and bequests from Old Etonians including the botanist Sir Joseph Banks who sailed with Captain Cook.
What to see at the Eton Natural History Museum
The museum has a collection of over 16,000 objects including a rare surviving page from the original manuscript of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species and artefacts relating to Old Etonian Sir Joseph Banks.
The museum has displays on Sir Joseph Banks’ voyage to Australia with Captain Cook on board HMB Endeavour, Charles Darwin’s voyage to the Galapagos Islands on HMS Beagle and Robin Hanbury-Tenison’s exploration of Borneo and the Amazon rainforest.
There are also displays of wildlife including wildlife local to the Thames Valley, a Royal Python snakeskin, a stuffed platypus plus a four-legged duck and a two-headed kitten.
It is a small museum so it won’t take long to visit and it is well worth a look if you’re in Eton on a Sunday afternoon.
Visiting the Eton Natural History Museum
The museum is located on South Meadow Lane, which is a two-minute walk from Eton Collect Chapel, an eight-minute walk from the centre of Eton and 15 minutes from central Windsor.
Admission is free and it is only open on Sunday afternoons, 2.30pm–5pm.
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