Norwich Museum
One of the City's most famous landmarks, Norwich Castle was built
by the Normans as a Royal Palace 900 years ago. Used as a prison
from the 14th century, the Castle became a museum in 1894.
Now the County's principal museum, the Castle is packed with
treasures to inspire and intrigue visitors of all ages. Its outstanding
collections of fine art, archaeology and natural history are of
national importance.
Natural history collections formed the bulk of the original material
acquired by Norwich Museum when it was formed in 1825. Most of
the early exhibits were private collections donated to the Museum
by its founders, and this tradition of local naturalists donating
collections continues today.
At present the collections number about one and a half million
specimens, covering all aspects of natural history and geology.
Although mainly of East Anglian origin, the collections incorporate
material from elsewhere in Britain, Europe and the rest of the
world, and are regarded as nationally and internationally important.
Amongst numerous categories and collections are the pre-eminent
Fountaine-Neimy collection of butterflies and W.G.Whittingham
(British Lepidoptera collection). There are a further 26 large
collections covering all orders, including 56,000 British and
30,000 foreign Lepidoptera.
At the time of writing this, the Fountaine-Neimy butterfly collection
is on public display for 20 weeks starting from September 2006.
 The
temporary exhibition is being mounted to mark the publication
of the biography 'Wild and Fearless: The Life of Margaret Fountaine'
and from 23 September onwards the colourful display of butterflies
will interchange on a weekly basis. It will take 20 weeks for
the entire collection of 23,000 insects to be displayed and will
be the first time that all of Margaret Fountaine's collection
can be seen by members of the public visiting the galleries.
A lot of collections are available for personal study at the
Norwich Castle Sudy Centre, use the link below to find details
of what collections are available.
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