Supplying Stone For The Evolution Garden at The Natural History Museum of London
Post date: 18 Jul, 2024
The Natural History Museum's new gardens are now open after
a five-year redevelopment plan that transforms the five-acre garden
into an urban haven for people and wildlife. This transformation
provides a new green oasis in the city, enhancing biodiversity and
offering a beautiful space for visitors to connect with nature as
well as a world-class outdoor living laboratory for ecologists and
environmentalists to help them understand better the diverse and
hugely important role that Urban Nature has to play in our cities.
The
Evolution Garden supported by Evolution Education Trust takes
visitors on a geological journey from the Precambrian Period about
4.6 billion years ago, through the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian,
Devonian and Carboniferous periods, all the way to the present with
each metre of pathway marking five million years of history.
Each
of these geological periods is represented by one or more rocks from
the UK incorporated into the garden landscape. Using rocks formed
during particular moments in Earth’s history, as well as plants and
sculptures, the garden tells the story of life on Earth, and CED
Stone is very proud to have been asked by the Natural History Museum
project team to source and supply almost all the stone for the newly
transformed gardens.
The
garden starts
at the museum tunnel entrance from the South Kensington subway, the
Precambrian period being depicted by an
immersive canyon made from the oldest rocks in the UK: Lewisian
Gneiss.
© Trustees of The Natural History Museum
Lewisian Gneiss, with its distinctive banding, is a metamorphic rock over 2.7 billion years old and can be found on the Western Isles and the West Coast of Scotland. We knew about an old quarry on Barra where we might source some large Lewisian Gneiss boulders. The quarry was operational in the 1990s, and the rock from this quarry was used to build a road between the islands of Barra and Vatersay.
Barra
is a small island on the southernmost tip of the Hebrides and is not
the easiest location to get to. But the garden could not have
started, nor could the project be completed without this rock. So,
our MD Giles Heap made the epic trip to Barra together with Dr Paul
Kenrick, Neil Davidson, Alex Scally, Toby Fielder and Darren Higgins,
ending in a flight oversea in a small fixed-wing plane and landing on
the beautiful sands of An Tràigh Mhòr (The Great Beach).
We
visited many other quarries across the country sourcing stone for the
project, and thanks to our efforts, there are more than 26 different
rock types in the garden spanning Earth's geological periods,
including a Cambrian Period slate from North Wales, Cornish Granite
formed during the Early Permian Period, a Red Sandstone from Scotland
formed in the Permian Period when there were deserts in Scotland, and
Chalk from Northern Ireland represents the Cretaceous Period.
The
youngest stone in the gardens is Scoria. Formed in a volcanic
eruption in Iceland this stone marks the Permian-Triassic extinction,
a series of extinction pulses that contributed to the greatest mass
extinction in Earth's history.
As
visitors walk the pathways in the footsteps of evolving life on
Earth, there are fossils, brass inlays and 3D reliefs visitors can
touch. In the Jurassic garden, amidst the tree ferns and cycads, you
will find a weatherproof bronze cast of the Museum's much-loved
Diplodocus. Throughout the garden, there are rocks which can be used
as seating so that visitors can rest and immerse themselves in the
gardens. Each rock seat will be in the period it was formed.
© Trustees of The Natural History Museum
CED
Stone Managing Director Giles Heap states,
This
remarkable project is one of the most complicated yet rewarding
schemes our company has ever undertaken, only made possible after
decades of experience sourcing unusual stones across the UK and the
rest of the world.
The journey to this achievement
involved approximately five years of intensive research, sourcing,
supplier engagement, and numerous design team meetings. The project
presented some tricky logistical challenges and required extensive
travel to far-flung parts of the British Isles and other places. The
culmination of these efforts is a testament to the hard work of the
entire project team, including Szerelemy, J&L Gibbons, Feilden
Fowles, Walter Lilly, Mace, and, of course, The Natural History
Museum itself.
Giles Heap, Dr Paul Kenrick, Neil Davidson and Toby Fielder at our Scotland Depot selecting stone for the gardens.
Together, we have created what is destined to become one of the most amazing and visited public gardens, not just in London but possibly in the world.
Read
more about the garden and the geological journey it takes you on here.