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 into the Nature Discovery Garden supported by The Cadogan Charity, and the Evolution Garden, 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.

On the east side of the gardens, the Evolution Garden takes visitors on a geological journey from the Precambrian Period including 2.7 billion-year old rock, through the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous periods, all the way to the present with each metre of pathway from the start of the Cambrian period marking five million years of history.

Within the Evolution Timeline supported by the Evolution Education Trust, each of these geological periods is represented by one or more rocks incorporated into the garden landscape, with all but two sources from across the UK. Using rocks formed during particular moments in Earth’s history, as well as plants, sculptures and brass inlays, the Evolution Garden tells the story of life on Earth, and CED Stone is very proud to have worked with the Natural History Museum project team to source and supply almost all the stone for the newly transformed gardens.

The Evolution Garden starts at the Museum tunnel entrance from the South Kensington subway, the Precambrian period being depicted by an immersive canyon made partly 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 Principal Researcher at the Museum - Dr Paul Kenrick, Neil Davidson - Partner, J&L Gibbons, architect Alex Scally - Feilden Fowles Architects, Toby Fielder - Water Lilly and Darren Higgins - Project Director, Solid Nature, 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 joint 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. Some of the rocks were also sourced through more unusual routes, including a farmer donating the Hertfordshire puddingstone he found on his land.

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 Fern supported by Kusuma Trust and 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 an accessible public garden that will inspire and spark wonder in visitors from across the globe.

Read more about the garden and the geological journey it takes you on here.