I wanted to share with you our day out at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in South East London. We had never trekked across south London to visit before and I had always assumed that it was a mini-version of the Natural History Museum. To some extent it is, but it so much more, with over 16 acres of gardens all with stunning views across London. It gave us a lovely day out combining both indoors and outdoors.
Right at the top of the garden with a vista of the Shard, the museum has created a sound garden celebrating instruments from across the world, It contains large scale instruments inspired from the museums own collection. They are so beautifully crafted no child or adult could resist touching them and having a play. What is it about sound outside? It has such a special quality. We spent ages with these magical things, really enjoying the even more magical sounds they created. It is certainly the best sound garden I have come across.
We decided to take their sundial trail. Not sure I have seen so many in one location before. The piece of paper we were given didn’t quite match what we found on the ground, but that made the matching even more fun. Particularly impressive was the glass sundial window, part of their beautiful glass conservatory.
We also really liked the grass sundial in the above photo. When we arrived a grounds maintenance guy was cutting the grass. I explained that we would like to take a photo and the guy replied fine. He then stood there. So I explained that we would like a photo without him. He then moved for us, but left his strimmer – Hence its addition to our photo.
Just look at this green roof – wonderful. We will be back to the gardens to walk the nature trail and participate in some of the events they have planned for the summer. I want to see how their vegetable garden has grown and my son wants to make more music.
We are linking up this post with Countrykids at Coombemill
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