Horniman Museum London, Forest Hill building, Southern England gardens design, British bandstand photos
Horniman Museum & Gardens
Pavilion Building in Forest Hill, London design by Charles Harrison Townsend ; Walters and Cohen Architects
post updated 7 November 2025
Architect: Feilden Fowles
Horniman Museum and Gardens reveals early look at Nature + Love project, launching in 125th anniversary year
NLP Cafe Kusuma Nature Play building design:
image © Feilden Fowles
DATES FOR THE DIARY:
- New Horniman Gardens attractions opening early summer 2026
- Historic natural history gallery to reopen early 2027
London. 6 November 2025. The Horniman Museum and Gardens in south east London has today revealed early details of what’s to come as part of its ambitious Nature + Love project. Several exciting new experiences will open to the public during the Horniman’s 125th anniversary year in 2026, with new opportunities for visitors to play, learn, and engage in nature.
An early look at the Horniman Museum and Garden’s new nature-themed play area and café,one of a number of new experiences opening at the much loved institution from early Summer 2026:
Nature + Love is the Horniman’s major transformation project that has been supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and aims to inspire a greater understanding of and appreciation for the world we all share, while making the Horniman more accessible and inclusive to all visitors.
In early summer 2026 a number of new attractions and opportunities to engage in nature will open in the Horniman’s award-winning 16-acre Gardens, including:
- A new destination, Kusuma Nature Play, will offer an engaging space for families to encourage learning and wellbeing through nature and play. Kusuma Nature Play features a children’s play area inspired by local wildlife and a new family-friendly cafe, as well as more direct access onto the Horniman’s historic Nature Trail.
- The Horniman’s Nature Trail will offer step-free access for the first time, as well as site-specific interpretation, ensuring more visitors and school groups are able to enjoy the 700m long trail.
- An innovative augmented reality trail will be launched across the Gardens. The free and fun AR trail, developed with digital visitor engagement experts Smartify, will feature a cast of animated animals for visitors to meet, with challenges and mini games to play along the way.
- A transformed Gardens Nursery area will feature new glasshouses, a public boardwalk route, and workshop space offering local communities and other visitors the chance to learn about sustainable gardening.
The new outdoor spaces have been designed by architects Feilden Fowles and landscape architects J&L Gibbons.
Kusuma Nature Play Horniman Museum & Gardens, London:
image © Feilden Fowles
To celebrate the opening of these spaces, and to mark the Horniman’s 125th birthday in 2026, the Horniman will be holding three days of special events from 27 to 29 June.
In early 2027 the Horniman’s popular natural history gallery will reopen to the public. The fully refurbished gallery space will be entirely redisplayed with both familiar favourites and new objects, to explore humankind’s relationship with and impact on the natural world. More details will be announced in 2026.
Museums Minister Baroness Twycross said: ‘I am delighted we have been able to provide increased support for the Horniman to help deliver their Nature + Love project. It is a great example of how our cultural institutions can connect communities with the world around them.
‘As the Horniman Museum celebrates its 125th anniversary, this new project will provide opportunities for families and young people to learn about the world we live in and engage with nature.’
Michael Salter-Church MBE, Chair of the Horniman, said: ‘Opening in the Horniman’s 125th year, these new features in the Gardens will help visitors learn about the natural world and provide new welcoming spaces for everyone to enjoy for years to come. They embody the Horniman’s ethos and purpose and will help us celebrate our birthday!’
Kusuma Nature Play Horniman Museum & Gardens London building design:
image © Feilden Fowles and J&L Gibbons
Gordon Seabright, Chief Executive at the Horniman, said: ‘W
Kirsten Walker MBE, Director of Collections Care & Estates at the Horniman, said: ‘Nature + Love has been an incredible project to work on and we are very excited to welcome visitors to the new attractions opening at the Horniman, starting in the Gardens. We have improved accessibility to the Gardens, as well as creating new features – a new play area, family-friendly cafe and AR trail which are set to offer all visitors, at any age, opportunities for interactive outdoor learning and play. More than ever before, the Horniman is the perfect environment for visitors to spend time in nature, while furthering their understanding of the natural world – and having fun!’
Stuart McLeod, Director of London and South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: ’It’s fantastic to get the first glimpse of the next chapter for the Horniman Museum and Gardens. Nature + Love will create inclusive, engaging spaces that offer a deeper connection to our natural heritage. As the Horniman celebrates its 125th anniversary, we’re delighted that National Lottery players are helping to make this transformation possible, ensuring the Horniman continues to inspire visitors of all ages for generations to come.’
The Horniman’s Nature + Love project has been made possible by the support of a number of funders, including The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to money raised by National Lottery players. Kusuma Nature Play and the improved accessibility to the Nature Trail have been made possible by Kusuma Trust. The overall project has also been funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s Public Bodies Infrastructure Fund (PBIF), the Wolfson Foundation, Oak Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, and The Foyle Foundation.
More details about the new attractions, as well as plans for its 125th anniversary celebrations, will be announced in the coming months.
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About the Horniman Museum and Gardens
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is a welcoming, inspiring, family-friendly, free attraction in south east London’s Forest Hill. Marking its 125th anniversary in 2026, the Horniman connects visitors with global cultures and the natural environment.
Set among 16 acres of beautiful, award-winning Gardens, the Horniman has a collection of 350,000 objects, specimens and artefacts from around the world. The Horniman was Art Fund Museum of the Year 2022, the world’s largest museum prize.
In 2019 the Horniman declared an ecological and climate emergency, pledging to place carbon reduction and environmental issues at the heart of its work.
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is governed by an independent charitable trust; it is core-funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and also relies on income from ticket sales, memberships, the shop and the cafe to help care for the Gardens, animals and Aquarium residents, to run events and to look after the collections.
The Horniman Museum and Gardens first opened in 1901 as a gift to the people in perpetuity from tea trader and philanthropist Frederick John Horniman, to ‘bring the world to Forest Hill’.
The Horniman’s 125th anniversary in 2026 is centred around the completion of the Nature + Love project while looking forward to the next 125 years.
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
Over the next 10 years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
Follow (at)HeritageFundUK on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLottery #HeritageFund
About Kusuma Trust
Kusuma Trust UK is a family led philanthropic trust established in 2010. The Trust gives grants to organisations based on shared values and mutual interests in the UK, Gibraltar and India. Since inception, Kusuma Trust has made significant contributions in the areas of health, education and culture through capital, programme and research grants.
About the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s Public Bodies Infrastructure Fund (PBIF)
DCMS’s Public Bodies Infrastructure Fund supports the Department’s arts and cultural public bodies in addressing urgent and critical estates maintenance challenges.
About the Wolfson Foundation
The Wolfson Foundation is an independent grant-making charity with a focus on research and education. Its aim is to contribute to civil society by supporting high-quality projects in science, health, heritage, humanities and the arts.
Since it was established in 1955, the Wolfson Foundation has awarded over £1 billion (£2 billion in real terms) to around 14,000 projects throughout the UK, all on the basis of expert review.
About Oak Foundation
Through its grant-making, Oak Foundation contributes to a safer, fairer, and more sustainable world.
About Garfield Weston Foundation
The Garfield Weston Foundation is a family founded grant-maker that gives money to support charities across the UK. The Foundation supports charities operating in a wide variety of sectors that make a positive difference within their communities. The Foundation was established by W. Garfield Weston in 1958, through an endowment of shares in Wittington Investments – which holds a majority stake in Associated British Foods. This successful business model exists to this day. Each year the sum the Foundation has given away has grown: in the most recent financial year 2024-2025 the Foundation gave away almost £130 million to 2,967 charities. Since its establishment, the Foundation has generated funds of nearly £1.7 billion, which have been donated to UK charities.
About The Foyle Foundation
The Foyle Foundation was established in 2000 as an independent grant making trust to distribute grants to UK based charities (primarily arts and learning) and schools. The Foundation’s long planned spend down and closure takes place in December 2025 by when it will have distributed over £180M in total, including a number of legacy projects with long term benefit.
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Previously on e-architect:
post updated 17 April 2025 with new photos
Horniman Museum And Gardens Wins £100,000 Art Fund Museum Of The Year 2022
Horniman Museum and Gardens interior:
photo © Emli Bendixen
14 July 2022
Horniman Museum & Gardens Grant
Thursday 14th of July 2022 – Horniman Museum and Gardens is announced as Art Fund Museum of the Year 2022 this evening (14 July 2022). Nick Merriman, Director, was presented with the £100,000 prize – the largest museum prize in the world – by DJ and broadcaster Huw Stephens at a ceremony at the Design Museum, London.
Horniman Clock Tower London building:
photograph by Andrew Lee, courtesy of Horniman Museum and Gardens
Located in Forest Hill, the Horniman is London’s only museum where environment, ecology and human cultures can be seen side by side at a global scale. During 2021, following a period of reflection prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate emergency and the murder of George Floyd, they reimagined the role they could play as a creative hub for their local community.
The result was a transformational Reset Agenda – an ambitious programme focused on re-orientating activity to reach diverse audiences more representative of London. This included embedding a Climate and Ecology Manifesto, from an online club of Environment Champions to the creation of a micro-forest to combat local air pollution. From a takeover of the galleries by children to its youth panel of 14-19 year olds, work experience opportunities and Kickstart apprenticeships, the museum is inspiring the next generation.
photo © Emli Bendixen
A further focus of the Reset Agenda was the 696 Programme, an interrogation of the power and responsibility public organisations have in supporting local music. Showcasing Black British creativity and placing it at the Horniman’s heart, a sold-out festival reached 8000 visitors and nearly 20,000 experienced the related exhibition. The Horniman is also spearheading the collaboration amongst museums through its MAGNET group of organisations sharing collections-based touring exhibitions.
Jenny Waldman, Art Fund director and chair of the judges for Art Fund Museum of the Year, said, ‘The Horniman Museum and Gardens has now blossomed into a truly holistic museum bringing together art, nature and its myriad collections. Its values are woven through everything it now does, with a passionate team breathing life and meaning into every object, performance, plant and animal. In many ways it’s the perfect museum, and I would encourage everyone to go and experience all it has to offer.’
Dame Diane Lees, Director-General, Imperial War Museums, and judge for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2022, said, ‘The Horniman Museum and Gardens are championing the natural environment, commissioning artists and music festivals, to bring the eclectic collections of Frederick Horniman new relevance with diverse communities. They are setting the agenda for how a traditional museum can reinvent itself through powerful ideas.’
photograph © Emli Bendixen
The winner was one of five finalists. The other shortlisted museums were: Derby Museums, Museum of Making (Derby), People’s History Museum (Manchester), The Story Museum (Oxford) and Tŷ Pawb (Wrexham).
Each of the other finalist museums receives a £15,000 prize in recognition of their achievements.
The members of this year’s judging panel, chaired by Art Fund Director Jenny Waldman, are: Dame Diane Lees, Director-General, Imperial War Museums; Harold Offeh, artist and educator; Dr Janina Ramirez, cultural historian and broadcaster, and Huw Stephens, BBC Radio 6 DJ and broadcaster.
photograph © Emli Bendixen
Art Fund, the UK’s national charity for art, awards Art Fund Museum of the Year annually to one outstanding museum. The 2022 edition champions organisations whose achievements tell the story of museums’ creativity and resilience, and particularly focuses on those engaging the next generation of audiences in innovative ways. Art Fund Museum of the Year is the largest museum prize in the world.
#museumoftheyear
Horniman Museum & Gardens
100 London Road, Forest Hill
London SE23 3PQ
https://www.horniman.ac.uk
25 May 2022
Horniman appoints Feilden Fowles as lead architect for Nature + Love
Horniman Museum & Gardens Nature + Love
19 Jan 2019
Horniman Museum & Gardens Master Plan
Horniman appoints Studio Egret West for estate Master Plan
The Horniman Museum and Gardens has appointed Studio Egret West (SEW) as its Master Plan architects, to develop proposals for a series of discrete projects to support the development of the south London attraction’s estate and properties.
SEW is a growing practice of international architects, urban designers and landscape architects who have delivered a wide variety of successful framework projects over the last 14 years.
Nick Merriman, Chief Executive for the Horniman, says: ‘Studio Egret West stood out for us during the tender process because of their extensive experience, their consultative practice, their enthusiasm for the Horniman as visitors themselves, and their creative yet realistic take on what our future could look like. We’re excited to work with them to develop a framework for the Horniman.’
The Master Plan for the estate will be vital in delivering the strategic vision for the future of the Horniman Museum and Gardens, which includes attracting a million visitors a year by 2023, engaging audiences in global issues as London’s only museum where nature and culture are seen alongside each other, and more closely matching London’s diversity in its audiences.
Horniman Pavilion and Bandstand:
photo : Horniman Museum
Led by Founding Director David West, SEW’s team will work in collaboration with specialists from management consultancy Fourth Street, Expedition Engineers who will look at structural engineering and sustainability, and heritage consultant Michael Copeman. SEW have six months to develop their recommendations and hold public consultations, with the results to be presented to the Horniman’s Trustees in July 2019.
Horniman Pavilion building:
photo : Michael Harding
David West, Founding Director of Studio Egret West, says: ‘We are delighted to work with the Horniman, an institution and place that we have much personal affiliation and admiration for. We see so much potential to expand the nature and breadth of the draw of the Horniman Museum and Gardens through carefully considered interventions and programmes within a multi-layered landscape.’
Studio Egret West (SEW) was founded in 2004 and has designed and delivered numerous high quality place making projects through the symbiosis of memorable architecture, strategic urban design and ecology-driven landscape; with the public realm prioritised as the foundation of sustainable communities.
SEW has worked on numerous schemes through the UK and abroad that create a blend of living, learning, working, playing and enterprise. These include: Clapham Library; The Old Vinyl Factory in Hayes; Mayfield in Manchester; New Bermondsey; Millharbour Village in Canary Wharf; Caxton Works in Canning Town; Eastwick and Sweetwater adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; and the East Croydon Station. egretwest.com
4 Nov 2017
Interactive Installation
‘The Imminent Diorama’
13 – 26 Nov 2017
image courtesy of Chloe Nelkin Consulting
The National Trust, the Horniman Museum and Gardens, and Bompas & Parr have announced their winning entries for new interactive installation, ‘The Imminent Diorama’, which will allow the public to see one of London’s finest unprotected views of the city at the Horniman, as it appears now and as it could appear over the next eighty years.
Horniman Museum and Gardens, 100 London Road, Forest Hill, London SE23 3PQ
Monday 13th November – Sunday 26th November 2017
Horniman Museum & Gardens Imminent Diorama Event
28 May 2012
Horniman Museum & Gardens, London
Location: Forest Hill, London, south east England, UK
Horniman Gardens to Re-open after £2.3m Upgrade
Design – clocktower (1901) + bandstand : Charles Harrison Townsend
Design – Gardens Pavilion: Walters and Cohen
Revitalisation of Gardens brings new Display Gardens, a new Pavilion and opens up the spectacular London skyline terrace
On 31 May, the Horniman Museum & Gardens will reopen its 16.5 acre gardens to the public after a major £2.3M redevelopment.
The project, which was masterminded by landscape architects Land Use Consultants, has taken 16 months to complete. It marks an important point in the history of the gardens, which were first opened to the public by Horniman Museum founder Frederick Horniman in 1895. Following decades of piecemeal alterations, funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery through the Parks for People scheme has allowed all major areas of the Gardens to be improved. The completed project has enabled the layout of the Gardens to be viewed as a whole, revitalised much-loved aspects and strengthened the ties between the Museum’s collections and its surroundings.
Horniman Pavilion:
photo : Michael Harding
The most significant new development is the introduction of a Gardens Pavilion designed by Walters and Cohen, which will host school groups, conferences, lectures, and public performances. The contemporary timber building features floor to ceiling windows, a living roof and a spectacular outdoor terrace with views of the London skyline. The building, situated in the heart of the Gardens, will build on the Horniman’s educational reputation, giving students close up experience of animals and nature. The Gardens Pavilion is heated by a ground source pump allowing the Horniman to reduce both its carbon footprint and utility costs. The Horniman will develop many more diverse wildlife activities and scientific sessions including pond dipping, fungi walks, mini beasts hunts and landscape painting using the Pavilion and the adjoining nature trail.
Next to the Pavilion, a newly developed Animal Walk will be home to alpacas, goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits and ferrets which will be introduced gradually to the space. Visitors will be able to walk right through the centre of the new area for a close up view of the animals. The Horniman first developed an animal enclosure forty years ago and it has remained one of the most popular parts of the gardens for young visitors, providing a vital connection to the natural world in an urban setting. The new Animal Walk relates to the Museum’s Natural History collections, exploring the links between domesticated animals and their wild counterparts. It looks at why people live alongside domesticated animals and how our relationship with animals has changed.
Horniman Pavilion building interior:
photo : Michael Harding
Across the terrace sits the bandstand, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, the architect of the Horniman’s landmark 1901 clocktower. The bandstand has been given a new lease of life with oak floorboards and the restoration of the original weather vane. The impressive views from the bandstand, which for decades have been masked behind screens, have now been restored, with new glass panels evoking its heyday a century ago and allowing the London skyline to once again become a dramatic, living backdrop to both professional and community music performances.
Alongside the bandstand sits one of the oldest trees in the Gardens, a 300 year old Oak newly revealed by the re-landscaping of the terrace, while opposite sits the Dutch Barn newly restored, with open ended sides as per its original 1895 design, to provide shelter from the elements. The Dutch Barn will also be used as a green room for performers and a picnic space for groups.
Elsewhere, Horniman gardeners and curators have collaborated to redefine the award-winning formal and natural display gardens. Several new gardens have been created to strengthen the links between the interior and the exterior of the Horniman.
The Sound Garden is a brand new musical play area, inspired by instruments from around the world which features a series of immense musical instruments including a xylophone wall, bat pipes, drainpipe drums, and a spiral scraper. The area reflects the Horniman’s Music Gallery, which encourages visitors to try out different instruments and experiment with sound and tone.
Sweeping down from the Sound Garden, the Sunken Garden now features a reflection pool surrounded with a palette of plants and flowers used to make dye. Built in 1936 in the Arts and Crafts style, the outer beds are now a showcase for dozens of dye plants grouped according to the colour they produce. In the summer, the central beds will contain species like marigold and dahlia, which produce orange and yellow dye. Inside the Museum are many colourful objects made in many cultures from around the worlds using natural dyes.
The Food Garden celebrates plants from all over the world which thrive in the south London soil and climate and will include tips for growing crops. New labelling traces the international origins of familiar foods, and highlights links to objects in the Museum.
Horniman Museum entrance, 1896:
The Materials Garden includes plants used to make a whole range of products, such as the giant reed, whose bamboo-like stems are used to make oboe, clarinet and saxophone reeds; the ornamental Japanese banana, whose stem fibres can be woven into rope, baskets, paper and textiles; and papyrus, used by the ancient Egyptians to make paper. The Garden also features plants used to treat illnesses in different parts of the world, as traditional remedies or in the make-up of modern medicines. Janet Vitmayer CBE, Director of the Horniman Museum and Gardens:
“When the project opens we will be showcasing wonderful new planting displays, many linked to the Museum collections. This is alongside new facilities, including a graceful Pavilion building, a refurbished bandstand, an Animal Walk and a Sound Garden with giant musical instruments.
New activities and events for adults and children are planned and I am delighted that we can offer our public even more ways to explore and enjoy themselves at the Horniman. In 1901 Frederick Horniman formally gave the Museum and Gardens to ‘the people in perpetuity’ for their ‘recreation, instruction and enjoyment’. The Gardens were to be a complement to the Museum and Frederick Horniman requested that the whole gift should be treated as a unity. We feel that with this new project we have truly honoured Horniman’s vision and wishes.”
Horniman Museum & Gardens – Visitor Information
Horniman Museum & Gardens, 100 London Road, Forest Hill, London, SE23 3PQ
Admission: Free (Aquarium has an admission charge)
Opening hours: 10.30am-5.30pm daily
Further information: www.horniman.ac.uk or 020 8699 1872
Travel: The Horniman is situated on the South Circular Road (A205) in Forest Hill.
It can be reached easily by train to Forest Hill from Highbury and Islington, Whitechapel and Canada Water (on the new London Overground line), London Bridge (13 minutes), London Victoria, Clapham Junction and East Croydon, and by local buses (176, 185, 312, 356, P4 stop outside). There is also limited free parking in surrounding streets.
Access: The Museum and the Gardens are both wheelchair and pushchair friendly with accessible toilets. Limited on-site parking is available for disabled visitors – call 020 8699 1872.
Horniman Museum & Gardens – Background Information
The Horniman Gardens came into being as the result of the philanthropy of tea magnate Frederick Horniman and his son Emslie. In 1868, Frederick bought a villa, Surrey House, on the London Road some 300 yards from Lordship Lane station on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Line. From opening part of his house as a museum in the 1880’s, Horniman was committed to providing access to the local community to his collections of natural, historical and ethnographical artefacts and his gardens as a learning opportunity.
Horniman opened his gardens to the public in 1895 and soon after decided to demolish Surrey House in order to build the Horniman Free Museum. He gave this and the land around his new house, Surrey Mount, some 100 yards further up the hill, to the London County Council in 1901 on two conditions: first that the museum and garden should be free and second that they should be treated as a unity, one supporting the other.
The Horniman Museum opened in 1901 and holds some 350,000 objects. The Horniman has three main collections: Natural History with 250,000 specimens; World Cultures (Anthropology) comprising 80,000 objects and Musical Instruments with over 8,500 instruments. In recognition of their national importance, the Anthropology and Musical Instrument collections have been awarded Designated status.
Horniman Museum & Gardens images / information from The Press Office
Walters & Cohen Architects
23 Jun 2017
Horniman Museum and Gardens’ Coombe Cliff Conservatory reopens
Restoration Design Architects: Donald Insall Associates
photo © Thomas Erskine
Coombe Cliff Conservatory Restoration, Horniman Museum & Gardens
Location: 100 London Road, Forest Hill, London, SE23 3PQ, England, UK
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Website: www.horniman.ac.uk
