Terms and conditions

Find the terms and conditions of advance bookings, ticket purchases, the use of the website, limitations and intellectual property.

By booking tickets through the website horniman.ac.uk, my.horniman.ac.uk or horniman.arttickets.org.uk (the ‘website’ or ‘site’) you are entering into an agreement with the Horniman on the terms and conditions set out below, for the following type of tickets:

  • Entry tickets: general admission to the Horniman (if applicable)
  • Exhibition tickets: entry to a charged for or ticketed exhibition
  • Attraction tickets: entry to our Butterfly House and Aquarium
  • Event tickets: for entry to events on our premises or organised by the Horniman.

Tickets are valid only for the number of persons, date, time and entry stated on the ticket. Tickets are for single entry only. The booker is responsible for ensuring all the details of their ticket purchase are correct on receipt of their confirmation email.

During the visit, tickets must be retained for production on demand by Horniman staff.

We will not be responsible for any tickets that are lost, stolen or destroyed. Replacement tickets will be issued at our discretion.

We reserve the right at our discretion to alter our advertised arrangements for events, attractions and exhibitions, and to cancel any time slot or event or attraction or exhibition without notice. If this occurs and you have purchased a ticket we will where possible offer you an exchange or refund of your ticket(s).

children (16 and under) must be accompanied by an adult during their visit.

If you are a UK taxpayer and have bought tickets that include a donation, the Museum can claim back extra money from the government through the Gift Aid scheme. You agree to contact us if you wish to cancel your Gift Aid declaration, if you have changed your name or address, or if you no longer pay sufficient tax to qualify for Gift Aid. If you pay Income Tax at the higher or additional rate and want to receive the additional tax relief due to you, you must include all your Gift Aid donations on your Self-Assessment tax return or ask HM Revenue & Customs to adjust your tax code.

Tickets that have been purchased and have subsequently been Gift Aided cannot, under HMRC rules, be refunded. We will endeavour to find a suitable alternative option for visitors in these circumstances.

You may not re-sell tickets without our prior written consent. All tickets sold are for personal use only, and cannot be resold, transferred or used for promotional, commercial or fundraising purposes. We will (subject to our sole discretion) refuse entry to any person who attempts to enter a ticket that has been resold without our written consent and no compensation whatsoever is payable by us if this occurs.

All transactions are shown in pounds sterling (£). All prices quoted are correct at the time of publication and where appropriate include UK sales tax (VAT) at the current rate.

Subject to these Terms and Conditions, tickets are not refundable. We reserve the right to refuse admission.

Nothing in these terms and conditions shall serve to exclude or limit the Horniman’s liability in respect of death or personal injury caused by the Horniman’s negligence or the negligence of its officers or employees or for any fraudulent misrepresentation or any other liability that cannot, as a matter of law, be excluded or limited.

No person who is not a party to these terms and conditions shall have any right to enforce any term under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

The Horniman may assign or transfer any of its rights or subcontract any of its obligations under these terms and conditions to any third party. You may not assign or transfer any of your rights or subcontract any of your obligations under these terms and conditions except with the specific permission in writing of the Horniman.

Direct Debit Service user number: 272596. All Direct Debits are covered by the Direct Debit guarantee. This Guarantee is offered by all banks and building societies that accept instructions to pay Direct Debits:

  • If there are any changes to the amount, date or frequency of your Direct Debit, Horniman Museum and Gardens will notify you 10 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed.
  • If you request Horniman Museum and Gardens to collect a payment, confirmation of the amount and date will be given to you at the time of the request.
  • If an error is made in the payment of your Direct Debit, by Horniman Museum and Gardens or your bank or building society, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of the amount paid from your bank or building society.
  • If you receive a refund you are not entitled to, you must pay it back when Horniman Museum and Gardens asks you to.
  • You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by simply contacting your bank or building society. Written confirmation may be required. Please also notify us.

Please read this carefully as it affects your legal rights and sets out the terms and conditions on which we, Horniman Museum and Gardens (“We”), will allow you to use this website (“the website”) and the information contained within it. The website is offered to you conditional on your agreement with these terms and conditions and your continued use of it signifies agreement with them in their entirety and without modification.

Your use of this website

You may download to a local hard disk and print extracts from the website solely for personal, non-commercial use and influencing the way in which internal auditing is carried out in your place of work.

You may not reproduce part or all of the contents of the website in any form unless it is for personal, non-commercial use or unless We give our written permission.

You may not copy or otherwise incorporate into or store in any other website, electronic retrieval system, publication or other work any of the content of the website in any form (whether hard copy, electronic or other) unless We give our written permission.

You may not frame or link to the website or any part of it without our express permission.

We shall be entitled at any time to delete, remove or suspend the whole or any part of the website or any information posted in it without notice and without incurring any liability.

We endeavour to ensure that the information in the website is accurate and helpful at all times. However, We cannot ultimately warrant the accuracy of that information and cannot be held liable for any use or reliance you may make of or put on it except as specifically agreed with us in any further agreement we may make with you in writing.

Any link (be it a hypertext link or other referral device) used on the website is provided solely for the use and convenience of the visitor. The link does not represent any endorsement or recommendation by us and does not mean that We have any association with the linked website. We are not responsible for the content of any websites that have links with the website or for the legal consequences of your entering into any contracts with the third parties that have these linked websites and We do not accept any liability for any loss, damage, expense, costs or liability whatsoever incurred by you as a result.

We will not be liable for any loss, damage, expense, costs, delays or other liability whatsoever (including without limitation any financial losses such as loss of profit) which you may incur as a result of any event beyond our reasonable control (including without limitation any failure of transmission, communication, computer or other facilities or your inability to access the website for any reason or any failure, error or delay in the sending or receiving of any notice or communication or instruction through the post or any electronic medium).

Nothing within these conditions operates so as to exclude, limit or restrict our liability for death or personal injury. Where you deal as a consumer, nothing in the above exclusions affects your statutory rights.

The contents of the website are Copyright © Horniman Museum and Gardens unless otherwise stated. Use of such copyright will only be permitted within the scope of the licence contained at “Your use of the website” above.

Trade marks displayed may be registered and nothing contained in these conditions or the website should be construed as granting by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any licence or right to use any of the trade marks without the permission of the owner of the trade mark. However, copying and printing of those web pages which contain our trade mark is permitted within the scope of the licence contained at “Your use of the website” above.

The Horniman Museum and Gardens’ websites are copyright of the Horniman Museum and Gardens. Material may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for research, private study or for internal circulation within an educational organisation (such as schools, colleges and universities). This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Where any of the items on this site are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified, the copyright status acknowledged.

Some images on the site are copyright to external photographers. Where this is the case, the images are marked as such. You may not reproduce these images in any format.

The Horniman Museum and Gardens celebrates human creativity. It follows therefore that it respects and seeks to honour all laws and regulations designed to protect the rights of creative persons and organisations, including ourselves.

Rights exist to protect those who create, using their imagination, things that can be re-used. Collectively known as Intellectual Property (IP) rights, these take many forms. This policy applies in general to all forms of IP rights but it addresses specifically only Copyright. All other rights are asserted as per the law of the United Kingdom.

The Horniman however has in its care many thousands of items for which it has little information as to who created it and might have rights to protect.

The Horniman wishes to share the information we have about our collections. We do this mostly by publishing it on our website, but also and increasingly through collaboration with other organisations who publish our information and by making appropriate information available for download.

For this purpose, we seek to apply the minimum of licencing and protection to the assets we create, while equally protecting the rights of others.

Please note: the Horniman Museum and Gardens cannot guarantee that your use of any content found on our website will not infringe any third-party copyright or other intellectual property rights. It is your responsibility to judge whether any of the content may need additional clearances for your intended use and to obtain them.

If we get it wrong

Although all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that material that infringes the law will not be present on the Horniman’s website or any publication or broadcast to which the Horniman has supplied material from its collections, the risk cannot be entirely eliminated. A variety of measures are taken to minimise and manage risk including the publication and implementation of this ‘notice and takedown’ policy and procedures.

Please contact us in the event that you are the owner of the copyright or related rights in any of the material on this website:

  • and you believe that the material may be subject to a third party ownership or another legal claim,
  • or you believe that use of this material infringes your intellectual property or any other rights.

We will withdraw the material from our website upon receipt of your written objection and our initial verification of your complaint, while the matter is investigated. Your objection will be acknowledged within seven working days of receipt.

In order to process your enquiry, please provide us with the following information:

  • Your name
  • Your postal address
  • Your email address
  • Your telephone number
  • ID number
  • Name of Artist/Creator
  • Nature of your objection and verification of your right to make the objection
  • Any additional information

To enquiry@horniman.ac.uk. The information you provide will be used only in connection with this enquiry.

The Horniman Museum and Gardens takes great care to preserve your privacy and safeguard any personal details you share with us. Read our Privacy Notice which explains how we collect and use your personal information. Examples of your personal information would include your name, address and email address.

By understanding more about you and what you want from us, we are able to make sure that the experience you have of the Horniman is both positive and rewarding. Your personal information can help us to work more effectively and efficiently so that we are in the best position possible to ensure accessibility to the Horniman for all our audiences and workforce.

We hold personal data about our workforce, customers, donors, suppliers and other individuals for a variety of business purposes. Our Data Protection Policy sets out how we seek to protect personal data and ensure that our workforce understand the rules governing their use of personal data to which they have access in the course of their work.

In particular, this policy requires our workforce to ensure that the Data Compliance Officer (DCO) is consulted before any significant new data processing activity is initiated to ensure that relevant compliance steps are addressed.

To find out what information the Horniman holds about you, you will need to submit a subject access request to the Data Compliance Officer. You can do this in several ways:

Please provide as much detail as possible to help us answer your request.

You can read further information in our full Data Protection and Privacy Policies.

These terms apply to visitors using the Horniman’s free public, merchant or staff WiFi service. By using any Horniman WiFi service, you agree to be bound by these terms so please read them carefully.

We will collect:

  • Your IP address
  • Your device name, make and operating system
  • The areas you visit within the Horniman Museum and Gardens, when you are connected to the Horniman WiFi.

We will use this information for:

  • Improvement of the WiFi service
  • Monitoring usage and webpages
  • Understanding wayfinding around the Horniman.

This information will be anonymised and is not disclosed to third parties in its entirety, but may be shared with funders as part of large data sets. It will not be sold or leased out in any way. If you have any questions about this please contact web@horniman.ac.uk.

You agree you will at all times comply with the following terms when using Horniman WiFi:

  • You must not take part in any unlawful activity, commit nuisance activity such as spam emails, act in a threatening way or visit websites that are harassing, discriminatory, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually-oriented, racially offensive, sexist, homophobic, biphobic, transphobic, xenophobic, or otherwise objectionable to the Horniman values.
  • You will not breach our rights, or the rights of third-parties, in regard to copyright, trademarks, confidence, privacy or intellectual property rights.
  • Do not use WiFi access in any way that may affect the running of the WiFi or network or other technology connected to it (for example, other WiFi users’ devices). In particular, do not upload or download large files, or files that you do not have permission to access, and make sure your device is protected by up-to-date anti-virus software.
  • The use of the Public WiFi is for personal and not commercial activity.
  • The use of the Merchant WiFi is for the use of iZettle and other payment devices that require WiFi only.

You accept that:

  • The Horniman is not responsible or liable for any data or content that you access and receive via the service. The Horniman is not responsible for third-party content and cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of information obtained through our WiFi.
  • On occasion, the WiFi may not be available due to technical, legal or operational reasons. We may control the types of material that can be sent or received over the WiFi (for example, specific landing pages depending on your location) and may, at our discretion, suspend your access at any time without responsibility to you.
  • The Horniman WiFi is provided free of charge, and we do not guarantee the availability, coverage and speed of the service. You are responsible for ensuring that your devices have suitable virus-blocking software and you agree that the Horniman is not responsible or liable for any virus introduced through your use of the Horniman WiFi.
  • Use of the WiFi is at your own risk and we are not liable to you for any damages, losses, costs or expenses you may suffer because the WiFi is unavailable, does not operate as expected or causes loss or damage to any data. You are responsible for all damage, losses, costs or expenses suffered by us arising out of any breach by you of these terms.
  • The Horniman are entitled to cooperate with law enforcement authorities and rights-holders in the investigation of any suspected or alleged illegal activity by you which may include, but is not limited to, disclosure of such information as we have, and are entitled to provide by law, to law enforcement authorities or rights-holder.

These terms are subject to and are governed by English Law and are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

We reserve the right to change the terms and conditions under which the website is offered at any time. Any such change in terms and conditions will be effective once reflected in the text of these terms and conditions and published on this web page. You should check the terms and conditions periodically to ensure that you are aware of and complying with the current version.

The interpretation, construction, effect and enforceability of this agreement and your use of the website shall be governed by English Law, and you and We agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts for the determination of all disputes relating to your use of the website.

Any enquiries should be directed to enquiry@horniman.ac.uk