Author: More than a Dodo

What’s that mess outside?

If you’ve been past the Museum of Natural History, or visited the Pitt Rivers Museum lately, you may have noticed the approach to our beautiful building is looking a bit messy.

Our lawn and surrounding area is undergoing a large landscaping project over the coming months and should be looking lovely and welcoming in time for our re-opening next year. The driveways alongside the Museum are being freshly tarmacked and the paths are being laid with granite blocks, which will have it looking very smart.

Designs have taken inspiration from the original Victorian layout, with the lawn now cut back into an elegant curved shape, creating a dramatic approach to the building. The Victorian railings that ran along the front wall were removed during World War 2 and

believed to have been melted down to help the war effort, but some smart new replicas have now been installed in their place.

A more high tech approach has been taken to address the problem that we face each year with the lawn. Because part of the Radcliffe Science Library sits just inches below the grass, the soil is very thin, which means that drought and sun quickly cause the lawn to go very brown. If you’ve visited in summer, you will have seen a strange pattern; half of the lawn remains green while the half with the library hidden below is a crispy brown. A modern irrigation system is due to be put in place, keeping the grass green and lush ready for picnics all summer long. But you will also be pleased to know that there will be benches installed too, in case the ground is a bit soggy!

The outside environment will be much more pleasant and green, with trees planted in the paved area and enlarged flower beds next to the Museum. These additional plants will provide sustenance for our colony of bees and other pollinators. We also hope it will make the space an ideal relaxation spot after a long day exploring the Museum!

So we apologise for our currently scruffy exterior and any mud that you may find on your shoes, but hopefully when we reopen in 2014, it won’t just be the inside that’s looking its best, but the outside will be worthy of admiration, too.

Rachel Parle,  Education Officer

The Verrall Supper 2013

Once a year, on the first Wednesday of every March, when the weather is especially chilly (or so it seems), entomologists can be seen flocking towards the bright lights of London. As they wend their way towards South Kensington you may be forgiven for thinking that there is some kind of mass migration going on, and it’s true, entomologists do often seek warmer climes than Britain may have to offer, if only because of the abundance of insects is so much greater in those areas of the world where it is hot and sticky (and if there is one thing that entomologists cannot refuse, it’s an abundance of insects).
But on this occassion you would be wrong. For the first Wednesday of every March is devoted to the Verrall Supper. Arguably the highlight of the social calendar for all entomologists, the evening consists of a lecture, hosted by the Royal Entomological Society and presented by a distinguished entomologist, which is then followed by drinks, dinner and much socialising.

This year the dinner was hosted at The Rembrandt Hotel which is a short stroll from the Natural History Museum. Staff from the HEC left Oxford early in order to spend some time in the collections in the NHM, checking type specimens and doing a little research as a form of pre-dinner exercise just to sharpen our appetites.
The Rembrandt Hotel was a new venue for the Verrall Supper which for the last 10 or more years has been held at Imperial College. It proved to be an excellent setting although it seemed to take everyone a little while to get used to the idea that the tables were round instead of the long bench style table at Imperial that seat about 60 people. This new format made mingling with other guests between courses much easier however and it has to have been one of the chattiest Suppers that any of us have to been to in a while. Of course, the fact that there was 183 collected entomologists (a recent high in attendance) in the room might also have played a part.

What’s the collective noun for entomologist’s? A colony? Maybe a rabble? Cluster? Army? Clutter? Intrusion? Answers in the comments box below!

Zoë Simmons and Dr Jose Nunez-Mino, an associate of the HEC

Amoret Spooner and Mike Wilson, Head of Entomology at National Museum, Wales.

Darren Mann (right), talking to Charles Godfray (left), Hope Professor, Oxford.

One other notable change was the increase in the number of people documenting the ocassion. Social media is fast becoming a part of peoples daily lives so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to find that the Verrall Supper had acquired it’s own hashtag on Twitter or that photos of the dinner appeared within minutes of the courses being served.

If you would like further information about the history of the Verrall Supper or the Entomological Club through which the supper was established then there is an excellent publication on the subject by Pamela Gilbert.

Gilbert, P. (2005). The Entomological Club and Verrall Supper: A History (1826-2004). The Entomological Club c/o The Royal Entomologists Society. Headley Brothers Ltd, Kent.