The Polar Museum
Relics of Scott, Shackleton and the Arctic peoples, free to enter, in a Grade II listed 1930s institute.
Scott Polar Research Institute stands on Lensfield Road, and the Polar Museum is its public gallery. Polar research here began as a memorial: the institute was set up in 1920 to honour Captain Scott and the men who perished with him on the return from the Pole in 1912. The idea came to Frank Debenham, who had travelled with Scott, while he was climbing Mount Erebus in November 1912, and he became the first director.
The building
The institute's main block is Grade II listed and was built in 1933 and 1934 to designs by Sir Herbert Baker. Inside the small halls, shallow domed ceilings are painted by MacDonald Gill with the globe as seen from the North and South Poles. The little gardens hold sculpture and polar artefacts.
What to look for
A renovation reopened the museum in 2010, and a year later it was among the contenders for the Art Fund's annual museum prize. Displays cover Arctic art and artefacts, Victorian-era attempts to find a route through the Arctic, relics of Scott's and Shackleton's era in the Antarctic, and current polar research. Among the objects:
- A folding camera Scott took to the South Pole in 1912.
- A reindeer-skin sleeping bag from Captain Oates's journey on the same expedition.
- The sextant used for navigation aboard the James Caird on Shackleton's Endurance expedition.
Works by Herbert Ponting, Edward Wilson and Frank Hurley are among the art and photography in the collections.
Practical notes
Entry is free, Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 16:00, and there is an accessible side entrance. School and other groups need to book. The Fitzwilliam Museum makes an easy pairing.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
