VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
British museum that houses what is regarded as the world's greatest collection of the decorative arts. It is located in South Kensington London, near the Science Museum and the National History Museum.
The foundation of the museum dates from 1852, when the British government established the Museum of Manufactures in Marlborough House, St.James.
This museum housed a collection of decorative arts objects that had been displayed at the Crystal Palace.
The Victoria and Albert Museum houses vast tableaux of European sculpture, ceramics, furniture, metalwork, jewelry, and textiles from early medieval times to the present day.
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
Formely British Museum(Natural History), British natural science museum that has national and international responsibilities for taxonomic and associated research based on its outstanding collection of specimens and its extensive libraries.
The museum's collection comprise almost 70 million specimens from all parts of the world. Among these are a large number of type specimens, plants and animals from which species were first described and named. There are also highly significant historical collections, such as those of James Cook resulting from his expeditions to the Pacific and Charles Darwin. The collections are organized in departments of botany, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology, and zoology.
Despite the academic nature of its work, the museum presents a number of popular displays.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
Palace and London residence of the British sovereign, situated within the borough of Westminster. The palace takes name from the house of built(c.1705) for John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham.
It was bought in 1762 by George iii for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and became known as the Queen's house. By order of George iv, John Nash initiated the conversion of the house into a palace in the 1820s . Nash also reshaped the Buckingham Palace Gardens and designed the Marble Arch entryway, which was later removed(1851) to the north-east corner of Hyde park. Victoria was the first sovereign to live there( from 1837).
GREEN PARK
Royal park in the borough of Westminster London, located north of Buckingham Palace, east of Hyde Park and west of the neighbourhood of St.James, it covers about 53 acres(21 hectars) of land.
The park was enclosed in the 16th century, and it was later designated a royal park by Charlesii (reigned 1660-1687). In the 18th century it was an isolated location than often conceled highwaymen and
served as the meeting place for duels, but it was also used for fireworks displays and ballon ascents.
Green Park is the least stylized and ornamented of London's royal parks.
PICARDILLY CIRCUS
It is a busy London intersection and a popular meeting place. Lying between the neighbourhoods of St.James(south) and Soho(north) in the borough of Westminster , it serves as the nexus of Coventry Street, Shaftesbury Avenues , Regent Street, and Picardilly.
As a traffic hub and non-lit gathering place, Picardilly Circus attracts visitors from throughout the world, many of whom spraul on the steps of its stone island, which is crowned by the 1993 aluminium Statue of Eros.
