Old Town - Edinburgh - page 64

Don't Miss
Grand Gallery
The museum's main entrance, in the middle of Chambers St, leads into an atmospheric en-
trance hall occupying what used to be the museum cellars. Stairs lead up into the light of
the Victorian Grand Gallery , a spectacular glass-roofed atrium lined with cast-iron pil-
lars and balconies; this was the centrepiece of the original Victorian museum. It was de-
signed in the 1860s by Captain Francis Fowke of the Royal Engineers, who also created
the Royal Albert Hall in London, and parts of London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
Crowds gather on the hour to watch the chiming of the Millennium Clock Tower .
Built in 1999 to commemorate the best and worst of human history, and inspired by mech-
anical marvels such as Prague's Astronomical Clock, it is more of a kinetic sculpture than
a clock, crammed with amusing and thought-provoking symbols and animated figures.
Animal World
A door at the east end of the Grand Gallery leads into Animal World, one of the most im-
pressive of the Victorian museum's new exhibits. No dusty, static regiments of stuffed
creatures here, but a beautiful and dynamic display of animals apparently caught in the act
of bounding, leaping or pouncing, arranged in groups that illustrate different means of lo-
comotion, methods of feeding and modes of reproduction. Extinct creatures, including a
full-size skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex, mingle with the living.
Window on the World
The exhibits ranged around the balconies of the Grand Gallery are billed as a 'Window on
the World' that showcases more than 800 items from the museum's collections, ranging
from the world's largest scrimshaw carving , occupying two full-size sperm whale
jawbones, to a four-seat racing bicycle dating from 1898.
Hawthornden Court
At the west end of the Grand Gallery, the Connect exhibit showcases Dolly the Sheep , the
world's first mammal cloned from an adult cell, and leads into Hawthornden Court, the
soaring central atrium of the modern half of the museum, graced by the Formula 1 racing
car driven by Sir Jackie Stewart (Scotland's most successful racing driver) in the 1970s.