From the archives: Dodging falling bricks at the Natural History Museum construction site, 1876

By Tom Lowe2023-03-10T06:15:00

An account of what visitors found when being shown round the half-completed building by its architect Alfred Waterhouse

Site safety is one aspect of construction the Victorians did not excel at, but usually it would be the builders who are at risk. On a visit to the site of the Natural History Museum in 1876, it was members of the Architectural Association who found themselves narrowly avoiding a fatal accident. Workers on the scaffold above accidentally dropped two or three bricks, which landed within 2ft of the tour group and smashed one of the half-completed building’s terracotta tiles.

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