WELSH SLATE STARS IN THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM'S GARDENS
24 October 2024
Slabs of Welsh Slate showcase in the Natural History Museum’s newly transformed gardens.
Impressive slabs of Welsh Slate are helping to showcase the Natural History Museum’s transformation of its five-acre gardens.
Designed by architects Feilden Fowles with landscape firm J&L Gibbons, a total of 40 tonnes of slabs of Penrhyn Heather from Welsh Slate’s main Penrhyn quarry, weighing between 200kg and 700kg and measuring up to 3m long, help to form part of the Evolution Timeline, supported by the Evolution Education Trust.
Visitors can explore natural history dating back 2.7 billion years in the Evolution Garden, told through the immersive timeline of plants and rocks of different geological periods from across the UK.
Sited at the garden’s entrance via the pedestrian tunnel from South Kensington underground station to the well-loved London institution, the Welsh Slate slabs help to present two cliff faces of rock sheer either side of a ramp, forming a rugged canyon of stacked strata.
This mineral gorge makes for a striking entrance to the museum’s overhaul of its gardens into an evolutionary stroll through deep time, from the earliest mosses and liverworts, to the emergence of tree ferns and carboniferous forests, onto the arrival of flowers and savannahs, and finally an array of UK native habitats, surrounding a lush pond teeming with wildlife.
Into this Jurassic scene are creatures including Fern (supported by Kusuma Trust), a new 25m-long bronze cast of the Diplodocus that used to occupy the museum’s Hintze Hall, and two new buildings – the Garden Kitchen (a new cafe space) and the Nature Activity Centre supported by Amazon Web Services - a classroom for school groups and an outdoor laboratory space for scientists.
The Welsh Slate slabs were supplied by CED Stone Group and installed by award-winning new stone and restoration specialists Szerelmey whose contracts manager visited Penrhyn quarry with CED to source the appropriate stone.
These were transported to CED Stone’s Basildon site on pallets on an articulated truck where Szerelmey cut them to length, leaving natural ends on any visible positions, and a small amount of pitching off to form the copings. They were then lifted into place using a small crawler crane, with slings and a tackle on each end so the angle for landing could be adjusted.
Operations director Tamsin Pickeral said: “There was a maximum thickness specified so I believe there may have been some cutting at the quarry. The pitching off was required to limit any climb risk on the wall face. All concerned were happy with the end impression, particularly the natural ends.”
The Urban Nature Project was the museum’s response to the growing pressures of urbanisation and biodiversity loss on people and planet. The scheme was delivered as a net zero carbon and zero waste project by main contractor Walter Lilly.
In terms of design and construction, the museum took a sustainable approach that included a diesel-free site, no waste sent to landfill, peat-free fertilisers, a carbon budget, recycled materials, and building a drainage system to harvest rainwater for the plants
