Horniman Museum and Gardens

A museum opened in Forest Hill, south London, in 1901, built around the collection of the Victorian tea merchant and Quaker Frederick John Horniman. Horniman travelled the world buying tea and brought home ethnographic, musical and natural-history objects; his fortune allowed him to give the museum to the public. The building, by Charles Harrison Townsend in Arts-and-Crafts style with a huge mosaic on the facade, is Grade II* listed. Inside, holdings range from African masks through a famously overstuffed walrus to one of the largest collections of historical musical instruments in the world. An aquarium in the basement and the 6.5-hectare gardens with bandstand, sundial and conservatory make the museum a multi-purpose destination for families.