Three Victorian museums in terracotta and stone face each other across Exhibition Road, paved kerb to kerb.
What South Kensington looks like
runs about half a mile from Kensington Road down to Cromwell Road, paved kerb to kerb in one continuous surface with no raised pavement separating people from traffic. Grand museum buildings line both sides for most of its length, so a wide, largely car free plaza sits between them.
The 's terracotta facade, banded in buff and blue, dates from the 1870s and 1880s. Twin towers with pointed roofs frame a deep arched entrance, and carved animals run along the stonework. The stands beside it with a plainer, rectilinear front finished in the late 1920s.
Across the road, the 's Cromwell Road front is red brick and Portland stone from the 1900s, with a long row of carved figures under the roofline. Behind the museums, the streets turn residential. is a run of white stucco terraces from the 1840s, with columned porches and iron balconies repeating down the block.
South Kensington station's Piccadilly line entrance is a red terracotta building with round arched windows. A separate Victorian arcade a block away leads to the District and Circle platforms behind a colonnade of stone columns.
Shot in South Kensington
The Natural History Museum's Hintze Hall has appeared on screen many times, starting with a 1975 Disney comedy about a stolen dinosaur skeleton. It plays itself in some productions and stands in for a different building entirely in others, including an intergalactic palace in Jupiter Ascending.
One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, 1975
The Natural History Museum
In this 1975 Disney comedy, a King's Messenger hides a secret formula inside one of the museum's dinosaur skeletons to keep it from the spies chasing him. The skeleton is then stolen from the museum in the scramble to recover it.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, 2001
Played Lara Croft's base
The interior of Lara Croft's home and base of operations was partly filmed at the museum, with the exterior filmed at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. Other London locations, including Tower Bridge and Leadenhall Market, appear elsewhere in the film.
Agatha Christie's Poirot, "The Veiled Lady", 1990
Poirot turns criminal in this ITV episode, helping Lady Millicent Vaughn steal back a letter used to blackmail her. Hintze Hall is where he meets Hastings and Lady Vaughn.
Paddington, 2014
Played Millicent Clyde's museum
The museum's entrance hall is where Millicent Clyde plans to have Paddington stuffed and exhibited. Dippy the Diplodocus skeleton, on display in the hall at the time, appears briefly.
Jupiter Ascending, 2015
Played An intergalactic space palace
Jupiter Ascending gives Hintze Hall an otherworldly look as an intergalactic space palace. The Zoology basement corridor and the General Herbarium also appear elsewhere in the film.
Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2014
Played Harry Hart's house
Harry Hart's house exterior was filmed at an end of mews house on Stanhope Mews South, off Gloucester Road. Eggsy visits him there after flunking the final test.
Kemp Town's Regency terraces are the same white stucco as Thurloe Square, built within a couple of decades of each other, with columned porches and continuous cornice lines down the block. Wrought iron balconies repeat at the same first floor height on both streets. Kemp Town's crescent curves more sharply and its porches carry more decoration, so a straight frame along a terrace reads closer to South Kensington than one shot from an angle. Try searching white stucco terraces now.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh's Oakland district has the same round arched entrances and paired towers in rough hewn stone as the Natural History Museum, though it went up about fifteen years afterward in the 1890s. Pittsburgh's stone is grey rather than the terracotta's buff and blue banding, so a tight frame on an arch or a tower reads closer than a wide facade shot. Try searching round arched stone towers now.
Belgravia's stucco garden squares are grander and harder to film in, run by private estates that charge premium rates and restrict crews. Thurloe Square and the terraces around Egerton Terrace carry the same white stucco fronts and porch columns at a smaller scale, without Belgravia's booking restrictions. Belgravia's squares are wider and its porticoes taller, so a scene needs a full block of frontage rather than a close crop to avoid giving away the smaller scale here. Try searching white stucco garden squares now.
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