Museum of Natural History & Pitt Rivers Museum
About
Two of the best free museums in Britain share one site on Parks Road. The Museum of Natural History fills a Victorian neo-Gothic court of cast iron and glass with dinosaur skeletons, the famous Oxford dodo remains, and a swift colony that nests in its tower each summer; open daily 10am to 5pm. Walk past the dinosaurs and take a left at the Darwin statue and you are in the Pitt Rivers Museum, an anthropology collection of half a million objects stacked floor to ceiling in deliberately dense Victorian cases, open 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Sunday and from noon on Mondays. Both are free, and together they absorb a half day; the Pitt Rivers in particular is unlike any other museum you will visit.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓The Victorian iron-and-glass museum court
- ✓The Oxford dodo and the dinosaur skeletons
- ✓The Pitt Rivers' dense, atmospheric anthropology cases
- ✓Both museums completely free
Tips
- →Natural History opens daily 10am to 5pm; Pitt Rivers opens at noon on Mondays and 10am Tuesday to Sunday.
- →Enter the Pitt Rivers through the Natural History building: past the dinosaurs, left at the Darwin statue.
- →Groups over ten should book ahead with the museums.
Best Season
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