Nature & Environment
Learn how the growth of one of the world’s great cities has affected its environment – with the help of our related objects, stories and blogs.
Blogs-And-Stories

Take a tour along the River Thames in the 1930s
An atmospheric trip through lost London riverscapes

London’s lost rivers
Over hundreds of years, these rivers have been abandoned or concealed beneath our streets

The River Thames
Dive into stories about the key waterway that shaped – and has been shaped by – London

Frost fairs: Festivities on a frozen River Thames
Trading, feasting and entertainment on ice

Atmospheric photographs of Hampstead Heath
Observing the living landscape of London’s urban wilderness

Victorian photographs of Barnet & Enfield
Roaming rural north London in the late 1800s

The animals of London Zoo in the 1950s
Photographer Henry Grant takes us on a tour of these Regent’s Park residents


London’s whaling trade: Blubber & baleen
Whether sporting a corset or reading by lamplight, Londoners once relied on the products of whaling

Hop-picking: Londoners’ working holiday
Going ‘hopping’ in Kent was once a rare summertime escape from city life