SOUTH BANK AND AROUND - London - page 220

LONDON AQUARIUM
LONDON DUNGEON
County Hall, Westminster Bridge Rd Waterloo or Westminster 0871 423 2240,
www.thedungeons.com . Mon-Wed & Fri 10am-5pm, Thurs 11am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-6pm; longer hours
in school holidays.From £17.50 online. MAP
The newest arrival to County Hall is the ever-popular horror-fest, the London Dungeon.
Young teenagers and the credulous probably get the most out of this life-sized tableaux of
folk being hanged, drawn and quartered and tortured, the general hysteria being boosted by
actors in period garb. Visitors are led through a series of live-action period scenarios, dwell-
ing on the most gruesome London legends from Sweeney Todd to the inevitable Jack the
Ripper section, ending with the “Drop Ride to Doom”.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE MUSEUM
Lambeth Palace Road Waterloo or Westminster 020 7620 0374, www.florence-nightingale.co.uk . Daily
10am-5pm.£7.80. MAP
Hidden among the outbuildings of St Thomas' Hospital , the Florence Nightingale Museum
celebrates the devout woman who revolutionized the nursing profession by establishing the
first school of nursing at St Thomas' in 1860 and publishing her Notes on Nursing , which
emphasized the importance of hygiene, decorum and discipline Exhibits include the white
lantern that earned her the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp”; Athena, her stuffed pet
owl, and a long overdue section on the remarkable Mary Seacole , the Jamaican nurse who
nursed soldiers in the Crimea itself.
GARDEN MUSEUM
Lambeth Palace Rd Westminster or Lambeth North 020 7401 8865,
www.gardenmuseum.org.uk . Mon-Sat 10.30am-5pm, Sun 10.30am-4pm.£7.50. MAP
Housed in the former church of St Mary-at-Lambeth , this unpretentious museum puts on
excellent exhibitions on a horticultural theme in the ground floor galleries, and has a small
permanent exhibition in the belvedere, reached by a new wooden staircase. Two interesting
sarcophagi lurk among the foliage of the small graveyard : one belongs to Captain Bligh,
the commander of the Bounty ; more unusual is the memorial to John Tradescant, gardener to
James I and Charles I, depicting, among other things, a seven-headed griffin and several
crocodiles.
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
Lambeth Rd Lambeth North 020 7416 5000, www.iwm.org.uk .Daily 10am-6pm.Free. MAP
Housed in a domed building that was, until 1930, the central portion of the infamous “Bed-
lam” lunatic asylum, the Imperial War Museum holds by far the best collection of militaria
in the capital. The treatment of the subject matter is impressively wide-ranging and fairly
sober, with the main hall's militaristic display of guns, tanks and fighter planes offset by the