British Museum

===The largest building site in Europe (1825–1850)===
[[File:Image-The Grenville Library (1875).jpg|thumb|right|The [[Thomas Grenville|Grenville]] Library, 1875]]
As [[Robert Smirke (architect)|Sir Robert Smirke]]'s grand [[Neoclassical architecture|neo-classical]] building gradually arose, the museum became a construction site. The [[King's Library]], on the ground floor of the East Wing, was handed over in 1827, and was described as one of the finest rooms in London. Although it was not fully open to the general public until 1857, special openings were arranged during [[The Great Exhibition]] of 1851.

In 1840, the museum became involved in its first overseas [[excavation (archeology)|excavation]]s, [[Charles Fellows]]'s expedition to [[Xanthos]], in [[Anatolia|Asia Minor]], whence came remains of the tombs of the rulers of ancient [[Lycia]], among them the [[Nereid Monument|Nereid]] and [[Tomb of Payava|Payava]] monuments. In 1857, [[Charles Thomas Newton|Charles Newton]] was to discover the 4th-century BC [[Mausoleum of Maussollos|Mausoleum of Halikarnassos]], one of the [[Seven Wonders of the Ancient World]]. In the 1840s and 1850s the museum supported excavations in [[Assyria]] by [[Austen Henry Layard|A.H. Layard]] and others at sites such as [[Nimrud]] and [[Nineveh]]. Of particular interest to curators was the eventual discovery of [[Ashurbanipal]]'s great library of [[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]] [[Clay tablet|tablets]], which helped to make the museum a focus for [[Assyriology|Assyrian studies]].<ref>Reade, Julian (2004). ''Assyrian Sculpture''. London: The British Museum Press, p. 16.</ref>

[[Thomas Grenville|Sir Thomas Grenville]] (1755–1846), a trustee of the British Museum from 1830, assembled a library of 20,240 volumes, which he left to the museum in his will. The books arrived in January 1847 in twenty-one horse-drawn vans. The only vacant space for this large library was a room originally intended for manuscripts, between the Front Entrance Hall and the Manuscript Saloon. The books remained here until the British Library moved to [[St Pancras, London|St Pancras]] in 1998.