Access at South Kensington
Make sure your visit runs smoothly with our guide to luggage storage, cloakrooms, toilets, lifts and parking. You’ll also find information about facilities for disabled visitors.
Gardens audio guide and transcript
A guide to our gardens
Our audio guide brings to life the stories of our gardens, connecting you with the nature that surrounds you in our urban oasis.
Alongside described navigation, you’ll hear interviews not only with our scientists but with youth climate activists and horticultural experts too. It also features spoken word poetry created by talented young people.
Our guide also indicates moments where you can pause to take part in pond dipping or lie down on our custom-designed benches to listen to narrative content and lyrical storytelling about the nature surrounding you.
If you’re blind or partially bind and plan to use our audio guide, we recommend visiting with sighted support to help you navigate the space.
Evolution Garden
Listening to these tracks in order will take you on a tour around our Evolution Garden that takes approximately 60 minutes.
Along the way, you’ll hear from our scientists and other experts about how the story of the evolution of life on Earth has been woven into the garden’s design. Plus, you’ll get to listen to poems about the space co-produced with young people.
There’s also described navigation on dedicated tracks so our blind and visually impaired visitors can get the most out of their visits too.
Nature Discovery Garden
Listening to these tracks in order will take you on a tour of our Nature Discovery Garden that takes approximately 60 minutes.
Along the way, you’ll hear from our scientists and other experts about what’s going on in the garden, which acts as a living laboratory that our scientists use to study urban nature. You’ll also get to listen to poetry co-produced with young people.
There’s also described navigation on dedicated tracks so our blind and visually impaired visitors can get the most out of their visits too.
How we made our guide
We invited a group of blind and partially blind young people as well as poet, rapper and writer Testament to join us for a week of workshops and creative sessions.
From smelling soil samples to feeling the shapes of fossils that are millions of years old, they explored their sensory reactions to these objects. They also reflected on their emotional reactions to stories from our scientists. Their experiences were then captured and shaped into 13 spoken word pieces, which you can listen to in our audio guide.
We also conducted a series of focus groups with those with lived experience and worked with an expert in navigating museums as a blind or partially blind person. They shared how they use audio to interpret and navigate these spaces.
These insights helped us to create the described navigation for our gardens, which is included in our audio guide to deliver an accessible, inclusive experience for all. It encourages you to reach out and touch our sculptures, our tiny tactile models of insects and even some of our plant life.