World Museum

The World Museum in Liverpool features a grand, five-story facade topped by a stone pediment depicting figures of science and art. It opened in eighteen fifty-one as the Derby Museum, named after the thirteenth Earl of Derby, who donated his massive private collection of taxidermy and live animals. During the nineteen forty-one May Blitz, a single incendiary bomb gutted the interior. The shell remained a roofless ruin for years, while staff raced to save crates of specimens stored in the basement.