Scott Polar Research Institute

While climbing Mount Erebus in November 1912 as part of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, Frank Debenham came up with the idea of a polar research institute. After the end of World War I, he co-founded the institute with Raymond Priestley and was its first director. The Grade II listed main building (1933–1934) is by Sir Herbert Baker. The small halls have shallow domed ceilings painted with the aspect of the globe from north and south poles, by MacDonald Gill. The small gardens are home to a range of sculptures and historic artefacts relating to the polar regions.

SPRI operates the Polar Museum, which presents a range of objects, artworks, documents and photographs from the institute's extensive polar collections. The collections include material related to polar history, exploration, science, art and Arctic cultures. In 2010 the renovated Polar Museum opened its doors to the public; the reopening was met with widespread acclaim and the museum was shortlisted for the Art Fund's Museum of the Year prize in 2011. It contains displays of Arctic art and artefacts, material from the nineteenth-century search for the elusive Northwest Passage, relics from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (including the last letters of Captain Scott), and…