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27-651: The Museum of Economic Geology was established in 1837 in a building at 6 Craig's Court , Whitehall, at the suggestion of Henry de la Beche , the first director general of the Geological Survey . The museum's library was founded by de la Beche in 1843, mainly by donation from his own library. Initially under the Ordnance Survey , the museum administration moved to the Department of Woods and Forests in 1845. Larger premises soon became necessary, and

54-515: A design for a new building, the Museum of Practical Geology, was commissioned from James Pennethorne . Built on a long narrow site with frontages in Piccadilly and Jermyn Street , that building housed the galleries, as well as a library, a 500-seat lecture theatre, offices and laboratories. It was constructed between 1845 and 1849, and was opened by Prince Albert on May 14, 1851. The purpose of

81-615: A part. It was built by Joseph Craig in the late 1690s on land that had once been the location of the Hermitage of St Katherine. The Court is entered through a narrow single-track road in which the carriage of the Speaker of the House of Commons once got stuck and which is often overlooked by tourists. The Sun Fire Office had offices there from 1726 and army agents Cox & Company were located there for over 150 years. Former residents include

108-499: A programme for members each year. The first International Rally of this series was held from Belton House, near Grantham, England on 23 August 1981. The series were the idea of two dedicated Veteran Cycle Enthusiasts and Cycle Museum Curators, Gerard Buissett of France and Ray Fixter of England who together invited fifty entrants from Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and the UK. All rode original machines manufactured on or before 1890, half of

135-702: A succession of mostly aristocratic tenants who occupied the house because it was convenient for Whitehall and their positions in the British government. It became known as Harrington House when Charles Wyndham Stanhope , the 7th Earl of Harrington, moved there in 1867 or 1868 after the building was vacated by the Sun Fire Office, but it is not to be confused with the former residence of the Earls at Harrington House in Stable Yard, St James's. The 7th earl died in

162-633: The Victoria and Albert Museum . The museum was reopened by the then Duke of York in July 1935, after the completion of the new building on Exhibition Road in South Kensington two years prior - it had housed the ill-starred World Economic Conference in June 1933, which had brought together the representatives of 66 nations in a failed effort to end the then-prevalent global depression . The cost of

189-658: The Westminster Paving Act when Speaker of the House of Commons, Arthur Onslow 's carriage was involved in an accident on entering the Court. On the north side of the entrance is part of the South African High Commission , Walkers of Whitehall public house, and a telephone exchange that replaced numbers 1 and 2. On the south side of the entrance is the grade II listed 25 Whitehall (Craig's Court House), which runs from Whitehall and into

216-599: The NHM] is like switching over from a television programme made for schools to a big-screen epic, choreographed by Busby Berkeley ." However, it was not until 1998 that the previously difficult to find corridor between what had been the NHM and Geological Museum buildings was replaced by a new link gallery. The former Geological Museum galleries are now known as the Red Zone in the NHM's plans and internal directional signage. In 2014

243-569: The Planets , British Fossils , Pebbles , Treasures of the Earth and finally British Offshore Oil and Gas , which opened in 1988. Treasures of the Earth was the first major museum gallery in the world to integrate computers presenting images and text adjacent to artefacts as part of the information process within the exhibition. The central feature film, Liquid Assets , in the Oil and Gas exhibition

270-575: The United Kingdom, and industrial products made from them. There were three secondary sections, covering mechanical appliances used to process raw materials, specimens of historical products, and foreign materials imported in their raw state. The museum also included maps, mosaics, glass, pottery, and busts of prominent geologists and scientists, including William Smith and James Hall , though in 1901 over 2,700 decorative arts and archaeological items such as glassware and ceramics were transferred to

297-591: The custody of the Natural Environment Research Council to the newly independent Natural History Museum (NHM) by 1985. Renamed as Visions of the Earth, the Central Hall of the former Museum was transformed in 1996 to a design by Neal Potter. This included the installation of a large escalator (rising eleven metres at a 30° slope) that ascends continuously over two storeys and passes through a model globe. That globe rotated around

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324-534: The displays in the centre of the atrium were removed and replaced by an original skeleton of a stegosaurus on open display. The following year a new human evolution gallery was opened Craig%27s Court Craig's Court is a courtyard off Whitehall in central London containing the grade II* listed Harrington House (c.1692), other listed buildings, and the British Telecom Whitehall telephone exchange of which Harrington House forms

351-414: The end of the war brought a rapid decline and the sale of the business in 1923 to Lloyds Bank. 51°30′24″N 0°07′36″W  /  51.5067°N 0.1266°W  / 51.5067; -0.1266 IVCA The International Veteran Cycle Association (IVCA) promotes interest in the history of cycling . Its principal activity is the organisation of annual rallies , a different country hosting

378-604: The entrances to the secret government tunnels under central London which date principally to the Second World War and Cold War eras. Harrington House is grade II* listed with Historic England. The Sun Fire Office (established 1710) is first recorded in the Court in 1726, initially at number 9 before moving to Harrington House, as it would later be known, in 1759. The firm moved to Charing Cross in 1867. The army agents and bankers Cox & Company , founded by Richard Cox in 1758, moved to Craig's Court around 1765 as

405-478: The entry rode 1860c Boneshakers. At the sixth annual rally in 1986, the Association ( IVCA ) was formed at Lincoln, England on 26 May. It brought together those interested in early bicycles from a number of countries. The basic objectives of the association are: Countries that have previously Hosted the yearly event are: This event was originally to be Hosted by Belgium but due to an unfortunate accident to

432-536: The escalator, with dramatic sound effects based on Jimi Hendrix 's " Third Stone from the Sun ", attempting to give an impression of the flux in the core of the Earth. The escalator was a response to survey feedback that few visitors navigated the Geological Museum's monumental staircase to the top floors. Potter's major re-ordering of the galleries means that visitors are now encouraged to start their visit at

459-464: The firm grew rapidly. It continued to expand in the nineteenth century as it took on the agency of more regiments, causing it to need more office space in the Court. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 caused a further increase in business and the firm acquired more office space in the Court and adjacent streets, its clerks working day and night shifts, and numbering 4,500 by 1918, but

486-533: The house in 1881. In 1917, the building was acquired by the army agents and bankers Cox & Company, and in 1925 was purchased by the Postmaster General who also purchased land adjacent to the north with which it was joined around the same time. It was heightened in the 1950s. The combined buildings are now part of the British Telecom exchange known as Q-Whitehall which contains one of

513-508: The memoirist Teresia Constantia Phillips (1748–49) and the painter George Romney in the 1760s, but the only remaining original building is Harrington House. Craig's Court was built towards the end of the seventeenth century by Joseph Craig (died 1711), a vestryman of the London parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields on land that he already owned and other land that was sold to Joseph "Cragg" by William Waad in 1695. The area had earlier been

540-514: The museum formed its own design team which, working closely with the scientists and technicians, produced a series of temporary and permanent exhibitions starting with the re-presentation of the gem collection and then, with a design team led by Giles Velarde (Head of Exhibition Design from 1974 to 1988), produced Early Days of Geology in Britain , Black Gold , Britain Before Man , Journey to

567-691: The museum, as summarised in the Descriptive Guide , published in 1867, was: to exhibit the rocks minerals, and organic remains, illustrating the maps and sections of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom: also to exemplify the applications of the Mineral productions of these Islands to the uses of purposes of use and ornament The collections were accordingly arranged in two main sections covering natural materials found in

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594-564: The name "Institute of Geological Sciences". In 1971 the museum employed the late designer James Gardner to design and produce The Story of the Earth , which was acknowledged as a significant breakthrough in science museum design and critically acclaimed and imitated worldwide. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and became well known for the huge reproduction of a rock face, cast from site in Scotland , and for its planetarium , active volcano model and earthquake machine. Between 1971 and 1974

621-677: The new building was stated at around £220,000 by the First Commissioner of Works . Following the move, the museum became well known for the many dioramas (three-dimensional paintings) used to interpret geology and one or two mining techniques. These have largely been dismantled since the Natural History Museum took over the museum in 1986. In 1965, the museum was merged with the British Geological Survey and Overseas Geological Surveys, under

648-413: The site of the Hermitage of St Katherine. References to houses in the Court appear in official records from the 1690s. It was originally named Craggs's Court and is labelled Crag's Court on John Rocque 's map of 1747. It is labelled Craig's Court on Richard Horwood 's map of 1799 which is its current name. The entrance to the Court is a single-track road which is said to have hastened the creation of

675-514: The top of the building by ascending an escalator as part of the visit itinerary. The previously open-sided balconies of the atrium space are now solid walls lined with slabs of recycled slate. These are sand-blasted to show the major stars in the night sky and the planets in the Solar System . The Museums Association 's journal Museum Practice reported in 2007 that "the contrast between galleries just before and just after Potter’s arrival [at

702-452: The western side of the Court. The rear of The Old Shades public house, which fronts Whitehall, is in the Court. It is also grade II listed. The only remaining building from the original Craig's Court is Harrington House at numbers 3 and 4, built on the east side around 1692, and probably initially occupied by Joseph Craig. It remained in the descent of the Craig family until 1809 and had

729-543: Was shot and viewed vertically from a circular gallery and won a major award from the IVCA in 1989. "The Power Within" exhibition on seismology includes a reconstruction of the 1995 Kobe earthquake . Following the relocation of the British Geological Survey's academic activities to Keyworth , the museum galleries (renamed The Earth Galleries ) and the majority of its collections were transferred from

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