Nature Study Museum

Behind St. George-in-the-East in Shadwell sits a small, patient building. What appears at first to be an abandoned Victorian cottage is in fact an old mortuary chapel. The chapel was converted into the first Nature Study Museum for children in London at the turn of the century as an offshoot of the Whitechapel Museum. Numerous attempts to revive its fortunes have been unsuccessful.

The sign for Nature Study Museum is barely visible above the door. The humble nature of the building questions contemporary assumptions about the term 'museum'.