Hunterian Museum

I love museums. I think it goes back to when I was a child and my dad would sometimes take me and my brother to London museums as a great day out. I’ve been to the science and history museums so many times now, but still love going for a day out to them. As I’ve got older I’ve found my interests have changed, and I’ve found many weird and wonderful museums that I’ve wanted to go and explore. There’s just so many that I want to go see, so I’ve started writing them all done on a bucket list type thing to make sure I get around to visiting them all. One that’s been on my list for years now is the Hunterian Museum.


I’ve wanted to visit the Hunterian Museum (or the weird fermenty stuff in jars museum as I like to call it) since I first heard about it a few years ago, and when I was in London for Hello Kitty afternoon tea last week I thought it was a great excuse to take a visit. 



The Hunterian Museum is based in Holborn, in the Royal College of Surgeons and contains collections from William Hunter and John Hunter. Once you walk in you are greeted with collections made up of a history of surgery and medicine with gruesome instruments and preserved specimens. The jars are made up of animal and human specimens, and I could have been there hours looking at them all. There was anything from showing you body parts with tumors, to different types of animals. There were also some creepy ones that showed you the size of unborn babies, and different sizes of skulls.


I was surprised at how big the museum was, and as you moved around it there was also bits on surgery through the years, and displays showing different instruments that were used for procedures. Some of the early ones looked pretty horrible, I’m glad surgery has moved on a lot since then!


It was a fascinating way to spend an afternoon and well worth a visit if you’re in the area. I literally spent hours wondering around and reading everything and still think I didn’t get to see it all. This is a museum I’ll definitely be visiting again, there’s just so much to see!

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