Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Cultural And Historical Wealth Of London

By Olive Jillian Carter

There are many reasons to visit Britain. There are many great artifacts to see all over the country. Museums are of course, the main resource for historical and cultural wealth, a lot of which can found in the country's capital of London.

The British Museum holds a huge wealth of Art collections and historical artifacts from all around the world. The collections of exhibitions and artwork number to the thousands spanning across 2 million years of Human History. They are the finest and most unique items which range from the earliest human technology to the Medieval Iron works we have a comprehensive collection of thousands of artifacts and a huge amount of factual information which makes the whole visit and inspiring and educational.

The Bank of England Museum, (another museum of note) contains artifacts from the bank throughout history, such as books, paintings, banknotes, prints and silver. They also have a range of gold bars on display ranging from Roman times to modern day. As well as this, weapons like muskets and pikes that would have once been used to defend the bank are on display.

A museum for anyone with architectural flare is the Design Museum. With exhibitions on modern and contemporary design as well as historical design, the Design Museum is now globally recognised as one of the worlds leading modern design museums.

The Imperial War Museum came about in 1917 when the Cabinet decided that a National War Museum should be set up to collect and display material relating to the Great War, which was then still being fought. The interest taken by the Dominion governments led to the museum being given the title of Imperial War Museum. It was formally established by Act of Parliament in 1920 and a governing Board of Trustees appointed.

The famous Madam Tussauds wax museum was a tribute to the lady herself. She became settled in Baker Street Bazaar after spending much of her life as a travelling artist, where she made and sold her life-sized wax models. The now famous chamber of horrors that can be found inside the museum, was first dubbed so by Punch magazine as it consisted of a selection of gruesome French revolution models. Shed had huge success by the time she died in 1850.

First opened on Easter Monday 1881, the Natural History Museum was opened when Sir Richard Owen convinced the government that they needed another museum to house all of the natural history artifacts that were in the British Museum. The first of which to be added to the British museum were those in Sir Hans Sloanes collection of natural curiosities which he donated after he died. Then, as more were added to his collection, the need for another museum was becoming great and so up stepped Sir Richard Owen, followed by government approval.

Of course in order to get the most from each of these places, it will most likely take more than one day, and therefore some top accommodation is a must. There are many great hotels all dotted throughout London, most of which are situated within walking distance of fantastic cultural or historical landmarks.

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