This January, The Art of Deception will take visitors to Cambridge’ Whipple Museum of the History of Science into the dark underbelly of the world of collecting. How do fake artefacts end up in museums? Who made them, and why? And how do we detect them?
Come along to the Botanic Garden after dark and join biofluorescent expert David Atthowe as he guides us around the Garden, looking at plants and animals and their beautiful biofluorescent.
Two walks will take place each evening, one from 6pm to 7.30pm and the other from 8pm to 9.30pm.
These will be limited to 15 per walk and are strictly for those aged eight and over.
This event is part of Twilight at the Museums 2026.
Join us for our latest online 'rummage' in the Sedgwick Museum Archives, with our archivist, Sandra Freshney. We’ll delve into the Svalbard Exploration Archive which documents decades of geological research by the University of Cambridge in this Norwegian archipelago.
You'll see beautiful images of polar bears, learn about expedition rations, hear about travelling to the region, and see footage of students valiantly attempting to cross a stream with a sledge.
This is a FREE online event.
Tired of overwatering and underwatering? Want to create an indoor oasis where your houseplants thrive and flourish? Join Glasshouse Senior Horticulturist Kathryn Bray on this one-day course, covering a diversity of house plant topics.
Packed with colour and pattern, interior designs vie with brightly coloured bedding schemes, and artificial flowers inside reflect artifice outside. Rich fashion fabrics are resolutely plain, but do the corsets and constrictions, bustles and flounces mirror the contrivances and deceptions in the garden where topiary and carpet bedding entertain? Inside and out are brought together in the middle-class home where ‘taste’ rules all.
Second part in a monthly series examining the interplay of textiles, fashion, culture, and garden design. Each session is sold separately.
In this one-day course you will learn all the processes involved in designing, carving and printing a lino block.
This hands-on workshop brings together science and creativity to explore the world of natural dyes – co-taught between the Curator, who specialises in the science of plant pigments and our artist in residence.
Transform your skin care with plant power! Discover how to use ordinary plant-based ingredients to enhance your daily beauty routine and create sample masks straight from the kitchen larder to soothe, nourish and rejuvenate your skin. During this class we’ll also make our own nourishing, healing and luxurious lip balms, a facial moisturiser with added precious essential oils to nourish the skin, and a gentle skin cleanser. These will all be made from plant-based ingredients (plus a little beeswax) and packaged in eco-friendly tins.
Would you like to understand how plants grow and reproduce in the enticing world of succulents? Then come and join our beginner’s course! Learn how to propagate and grow succulents from cuttings and explore the substrates in which to grow them. Learn propagation methods: stem, seed, leaf, rosette cuttings and plantlets. Delve into cacti propagation: globular, columnar or flat stem cuttings, as well as grafting and division. The course will include both practical and theoretical elements, including a tour of the succulent and cacti collection at the Botanic Garden.
Identifying trees in winter often means that the traditional identification features such as leaves and flowers are not visible. We will look at the features which can be used to identify trees in winter and throughout the year. With the Botanic Garden’s wonderful tree collection as our backdrop, we will focus mainly on broad-leaved deciduous landscape trees, as well as looking at some evergreen conifers. We will discuss some basic concepts, tree anatomy and spend time around the Garden identifying trees and comparing features.
