Museums and Galleries
Many of London's greatest museums are free to enter. How to see the highlights without getting lost, when the crowds are thinnest, and which paid museums are worth the ticket.
London has some of the finest museums in the world, and many of the largest national collections are free to enter. That makes museums one of the best ways to spend a day in the city, whatever the weather and whatever your budget.
The guides in this section cover the great national museums, the major art galleries and a selection of smaller and specialist museums, from a wartime bunker to wax figures. For each one we explain the highlights, whether you need to book, how long to allow and when it is least crowded. Start with the British Museum or read our overview of free museums in London.
93 guides in this section.
The great museums
The British Museum
The highlights, and a plan for a two-hour visit.
The Natural History Museum
Hope the whale, dinosaurs and how to beat the queue.
The Science Museum
Space, flight, Wonderlab and planning a family visit.
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A)
Design, the cast courts, exhibitions and the garden café.
Imperial War Museum London
The world wars, the Holocaust Galleries and a century of conflict.
London Museum: Smithfield and Docklands
The city's own museum, and its move to West Smithfield.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Art galleries
The National Gallery
The paintings not to miss, and a one-hour route.
Tate Modern
The Turbine Hall, the collection and the free view.
Tate Britain
British art, Turner, and the boat between the two Tates.
The National Portrait Gallery
Famous faces, from the Tudors to today.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Smaller and specialist museums
Madame Tussauds London
The wax figures, the tickets and how to avoid the queues.
Churchill War Rooms
The wartime bunker beneath Whitehall.
The Sherlock Holmes Museum
221b Baker Street, and other Sherlock sites nearby.
Royal Observatory and Cutty Sark, Greenwich
The Prime Meridian, a clipper ship and maritime history.
London's Best Small Museums
Soane's house, the Museum of the Home and other gems.
Free Museums in London
Which museums are free, and how donations work.
Museum Late Openings in London
Evening openings, lates and quieter galleries.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Free collections worth a detour
The Wallace Collection
Old masters and armour in a townhouse, free and rarely busy.
Sir John Soane's Museum
A house left exactly as its owner arranged it, free to enter.
Wellcome Collection
Medicine, bodies and belief, free, right by Euston.
The Foundling Museum
The tokens mothers left with their babies, and what became of them.
Whitechapel Gallery
Free displays, one paid show a season, and pay-what-you-can Thursdays.
The Serpentine Galleries
Two free galleries in a park, plus the summer pavilion.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Museums for a particular interest
London Transport Museum
Old Tube trains and buses you can actually climb into.
The Design Museum
A free collection in a building that is itself the exhibit.
The Horniman Museum and Gardens
A free museum, a paid aquarium, and one of the best views south.
The Postal Museum and Mail Rail
A ride through the Post Office's secret underground railway.
The Old Operating Theatre Museum
Surgery before anaesthetic, in a church attic up 52 steps.
The Courtauld Gallery
Impressionists you can see properly in a single visit.
HMS Belfast
Nine decks of a warship, from the guns down to the boiler room.
RAF Museum London
Free hangars of aircraft at the end of the Northern line.
Dennis Severs' House
A silent, candlelit house that pretends someone still lives there.
Leighton House and Sambourne House
An Arab Hall in Kensington, and the house of a Punch cartoonist.
Somerset House
Fountains, an ice rink, and a courtyard that is free to walk into.
London Museums That Work for Teenagers
Which ones hold a teenager's attention, and which really do not.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Writers' and artists' houses
The Charles Dickens Museum
The house where Oliver Twist was written, kept as a home.
Keats House
Where the Ode to a Nightingale was written, and the garden.
The Freud Museum
The actual couch, in the study he rebuilt after Vienna.
Handel Hendrix House
Handel's house and Hendrix's flat, next door to each other.
Benjamin Franklin House
The only Franklin house left standing, anywhere.
The Carlyles' House and London's Smallest Museums
A house frozen in 1881, and the other one-room museums.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
University and specialist collections
The Grant Museum of Zoology
Skeletons, specimen jars, and a jar full of moles.
The Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology
Everyday Egypt, free, and nobody else there.
The Hunterian Museum
A surgeon's collection, free - and genuinely not for everyone.
The Bank of England Museum
Free, inside the Bank, with a gold bar you can try to lift.
The Museum of Brands
Packaging since Victorian Britain, in one long tunnel.
The Garden Museum
Garden history in a church, with two famous graves outside.
The Florence Nightingale Museum
The actual lamp, opposite Parliament, six days a week.
The National Army Museum
Free, with a frank account of empire - and a paid play floor.
The Cartoon Museum and Comic Collections
Two centuries of British satire, just north of Oxford Street.
V&A East Storehouse
Order any object out of the racks and look at it. Free.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
How much time each one needs
How Long to Spend at the British Museum
What one hour, three hours and a whole day each get you.
How Long to Spend at the Natural History Museum
Realistic timings with children and without, queue included.
Tate Modern or Tate Britain: Which One?
Two free galleries with almost nothing in common. Choose properly.
Natural History Museum or Science Museum?
Same street, same queue, very different days out.
British Museum or the V&A?
What separates them, and which rewards a second visit.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Small collections with one subject
Two Temple Place
Free once a year, and the building matters more than the show.
The Brunel Museum and the Thames Tunnel
The first tunnel under a river, and the shaft you can enter.
The Kirkaldy Testing Museum
Three tour dates a month, and a machine that still runs.
The London Mithraeum
A Roman temple in a bank's basement. Free, and worth an hour.
The Museum of the Order of St John
A Tudor gatehouse, a Norman crypt, and hardly anyone in it.
The Fan Museum in Greenwich
The most specific museum in Britain, and worth the fare.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
The museums Greenwich is actually famous for
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Free and enormous. What to see in ninety minutes, and what to skip.
The Queen's House, Greenwich
Free, and far more than a staircase. Allow three quarters of an hour.
London Museum Docklands: The Thames and the Slave Trade
Free, in a sugar warehouse, and honest about where the money came from.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Galleries away from the Trafalgar Square crowds
Dulwich Picture Gallery
The gallery every other gallery copied. Half an hour from central London.
The Royal Academy of Arts
What is free here, what is not, and whether the Summer Exhibition is for you.
The Hayward Gallery and the ICA
Two contemporary galleries most visitors walk straight past.
The Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea
Big rooms in an old barracks off the King's Road. Some of it is free.
The William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow
Free, in his family's house, and it explains why the wallpaper mattered.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Small museums with one very good reason to go
The British Library: The Treasures Gallery
Magna Carta and Beowulf in one free room. No reader's pass needed.
Dr Johnson's House, Gough Square
Where the dictionary was written, up an alley off Fleet Street.
The Clink Prison Museum and the Golden Hinde
Two small Bankside attractions for children. An honest look at both.
The Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey
Two shows a year on clothes and making. It shuts in between.
The Ragged School Museum, Mile End
A Victorian classroom by the canal, reopened after years of works.
The Museum of Water and Steam and the Musical Museum, Brentford
Steam weekends and self-playing pianos, five minutes apart.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Sport, if you came for the sport
The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and Tour
Centre Court in February, with nobody in it. What the tour includes.
The Lord's Tour and the MCC Museum
The Ashes urn and the Long Room, on a tour that runs most days.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
The collections nobody has heard of
The Photographers' Gallery
Free before noon, five floors, and the best photography bookshop here.
Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall
Free, in a scenery workshop, with a restaurant people come for.
The Estorick Collection, Islington
Britain's only Italian modern art museum, in a Georgian house.
The Migration Museum
Free, about who came here and why, and about to move.
The Cinema Museum, Kennington
In Chaplin's old workhouse, by guided tour only. How to book.
The Museum of the Mind, Bethlem
The hospital that gave us the word bedlam, told honestly. Free.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Houses kept as they were
Fenton House and 2 Willow Road
A 1686 merchant's house and a 1939 modernist one, ten minutes apart.
Sutton House, Hackney
Tudor panelling and a 1980s squatters' mural in the same house.
Ranger's House and the Wernher Collection
A diamond fortune's art collection, open only a handful of days.
The Faraday Museum
Faraday's own basement laboratory, free, in Mayfair.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.
Museums at the end of the line
The National Archives at Kew
Domesday and the secret files, free. What you can see without a ticket.
The Borough Museums Nobody Visits
Free, empty, and often the best local history in the city.
Valence House and the Museums of Outer London
A moated Tudor manor in Dagenham, free, and the others like it.
The Clowns' Gallery and London's Oddest Collections
Clown memorabilia, one day a month, and the other odd collections.
The National Gallery or the National Portrait Gallery?
The National Gallery first. What the Portrait Gallery does better.
Photos in this list: photographer and licence for each image are listed on our image credits page.