The Lord's Guided Tour costs £32.95 for an adult, lasts 100 minutes, runs on most days when there is no cricket, and finishes in the MCC Museum a metre from the Ashes urn. You do not need to know the rules of cricket to enjoy it.
Lord's, on St John's Wood Road in north-west London, is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the only cricket ground in the world that most non-cricketing visitors have heard of. A tour is the way in when there is no match, and it is also the only way to see the MCC Museum, which is not open as a separate attraction. Our guide to watching cricket at Lord's and The Oval covers matches, formats and ticket ballots; this page is about the tour and the museum.
The important practical point is that tours are timetabled, sell out and do not always run. Morning slots go first. Book a date before you build a day around it.
The Lord's Guided Tour in brief
- Adult
- £32.95
- Senior or student
- £26.95
- Child
- £22.95 (under-5s free)
- Length
- 100 minutes
- Meeting point
- Grace Gate, St John's Wood Road, NW8 8QN
- Nearest station
- St John's Wood (Jubilee line), about 10 minutes on foot
- Booking
- Online, by date and time slot; MCC members book by telephone
What 100 minutes and £32.95 actually buy
The route is fixed and a guide leads the whole thing. You go into the Grade II*-listed Victorian Pavilion and through the Long Room, the members' room whose windows look straight down the ground and through which batsmen walk out to the middle. You see the players' dressing rooms with the honours boards on the walls. You cross to the Barclays Media Centre, the white pod on aluminium legs that sits above the Compton and Edrich stands. You end in the MCC Museum.
Two caveats matter and MCC states them itself. Lord's is a working ground, so access to any advertised area can be restricted or withdrawn on the day, and the itinerary can change without notice. And the ground is mid-redevelopment: MCC received planning consent in April 2024 to rebuild the Allen and Tavern stands, work on the Allen Stand began in autumn 2025, and the new stand is due to be finished before the 2027 Ashes series. Expect hoardings on the Tavern side.
Photo: Spike 'em · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
Tour times, and the ones that are gone by breakfast
Tours run through the day rather than once a morning. On a typical autumn weekday the booking system offered starts at 10:00, 10:30, 11:30, 12:00, 13:00, 13:30, 14:00, 14:30 and 16:00. On the date we checked in late September 2026, everything up to and including 12:00 had sold out while all the afternoon slots still had good availability.
That pattern is worth planning around. If you want a morning tour, book well ahead. If you are flexible, an early-afternoon slot is usually still available a few days out, and it leaves you the rest of the day for St John's Wood and Maida Vale. Nothing runs when a major match is on, and a tour date that looks empty in the calendar is often a match day rather than a quiet one.
A sold-out morning at Lord's is not a sold-out day. If the 10:00 and 11:30 slots have gone, scroll down before giving up: the 13:30 and 16:00 tours are the last to fill, and the museum is no busier on either.
The Ashes urn, and why it is smaller than you expect
The urn is about 15 centimetres of terracotta and it started life as a perfume jar. MCC's own account runs like this. England lost to Australia at The Oval on 29 August 1882, their first home defeat. The next day the Sporting Times printed a mock obituary of English cricket ending with the line that the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. Weeks later an English team captained by the Hon. Ivo Bligh sailed for Australia, Bligh promising to bring the ashes back.
After a social match at the Rupertswood estate outside Melbourne on Christmas Eve 1882, Bligh was given the small urn. He also met Florence Morphy there, and married her in 1884. He always treated the urn as a personal gift, and it sat on a mantelpiece at the family home near Rochester in Kent for 43 years until he died. At his request Florence left it to MCC.
So the object in the case is not a trophy anyone plays for. The thing presented to winning captains since 1998-99 is a separate Waterford Crystal replica commissioned by MCC. The urn itself has left the building only rarely, for exhibitions in Australia in 2006-07 and again in 2019-20.
Inside the MCC Museum
The museum is one of the oldest sporting museums anywhere and it is the part of the tour that rewards standing still. Alongside the urn there are bats, caps, ties, scorebooks and a large collection of cricket paintings, and the labels assume no previous knowledge. Because it sits inside the tour route rather than on a separate ticket, you get roughly the last stretch of the 100 minutes in it, which is enough for a first look and not enough to read everything.
There is a Heritage Trail around the ground with QR codes at each point, and it is the free extra most visitors miss. Look up on the Pavilion roof for Father Time, the weathervane of a figure removing the stumps, which MCC treats as the ground's emblem.
Three more expensive ways in
| Experience | Adult price | Length | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lord's Guided Tour | £32.95 | 100 min | The standard tour |
| Lord's Tour Plus | From £57.95 | 110-120 min | Ages 12+, maximum 14 people, extra behind-the-scenes areas, guidebook included |
| The Australian Special | £75 (child under 12 £35) | 2 hours | Handle selected Australian items, see the MCC Library and the 1932-33 Bodyline scorebook; ages 6+ |
| Players' Dining Room Experience | £130 (child under 12 £65) | 3 hours | Tour plus a three-course lunch in the players' dining room; ages 6+, selected dates only |
The Tour Plus is the one that makes sense for a keen visitor: a small group and a slower pace for £25 more. The Australian Special is aimed squarely at Australian visitors and runs on a handful of dates, usually at 09:00. The Players' Dining Room dates are published a few at a time and sell out, so check before you plan a birthday around it. Prices and durations here are those published in September 2026; for how a Lord's tour compares with the football grounds, see our round-up of stadium tours in London.
Getting to the Grace Gate
MCC publishes walking times from six stations, and the shortest is not always the best. St John's Wood on the Jubilee line is about 10 minutes but gets heavily congested around events. Marylebone is 12 minutes, Warwick Avenue about 17, Baker Street 18, and Edgware Road and Paddington about 20. There is a signed walking route from Baker Street.
Buses 13 and 113 run along Wellington Road on the east side of the ground, closest to the North and East gates. Buses 139 and 189 run along Grove End Road on the west side and stop nearest the Grace Gate, which is where tours start. For a first visit, the 139 or 189 puts you at the right door. Our guide to the Jubilee line explains the interchanges, and London buses and night buses covers fares and how to pay.
For step-free travel MCC's advice is to avoid the Tube for the last leg and use a bus instead: the 189 from Kilburn on the Jubilee line, from stop B on Shoot-up Hill, or the 13 from Golders Green on the Northern line, from the bus station outside the entrance. Marylebone is the nearest step-free main-line station and bus 113 connects it to the ground. Our guide to step-free and accessible transport explains how turn-up-and-go assistance works.
There are Santander Cycles docking stations within five minutes' walk on Abbey Road, St John's Wood Road, Wellington Road, Lodge Road, Lisson Grove and Prince Albert Road; see hiring a bike in London. MCC asks visitors not to drive unless they need to.
Access inside the ground
Lord's publishes a detailed access guide and the short version is encouraging. Passenger lifts reach all levels of the Pavilion and the seating levels of the Warner, Grand, Compton, Edrich and Mound stands, and all the lifts are reachable by level roadways. Disabled spectators have priority over other spectators in the lifts. Accessible toilets and baby-changing facilities are spread through the stands and are opened with a RADAR key available from stewards. Assistance dogs are welcome and bowls are kept at the Head Steward's office. Signage uses high-contrast upper and lower case lettering, and MCC offers British Sign Language contact through a video relay interpreter.
Accessible parking inside the ground can be arranged in advance on minor match days but not on major ones, when set-down and pick-up at the No. 6 car park can be booked instead. Both go through MCC's Club Services team.
What happens on a match day
On a major match day the tour does not run and the museum is open to ticket holders only. If you are in the area anyway, the pubs fill early and the streets around the ground are busy from two hours before play. The Lords Tavern on the corner of St John's Wood Road is the obvious stop and held a food hygiene rating of 5 at its inspection in October 2025.
If rain washes out the cricket, the museum and the Pavilion are indoors and dry, which makes Lord's a better wet-weather option than most sporting venues. Our list of things to do in London on a rainy day has the alternatives, and teenagers who will not thank you for a stately home often do thank you for the dressing rooms: see London with teenagers.
Fitting the tour into a day
A 100-minute tour plus travel is a half morning, not a day. The natural pairing is the Abbey Road crossing, about 10 minutes' walk away, and then the canal towpath down to Little Venice. If you would rather stay green, Regent's Park and Primrose Hill start a few minutes east. Because tours must be booked by slot, Lord's belongs on the short list of things to fix before you fly: see what to book before you go to London.
Two other sporting collections in London work the same way. The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum and tour is the closest equivalent in scale, and at the other end of town the free viewing floor at the OXO Tower costs nothing at all. If you are walking between them, Marble Arch and Park Lane lie on the direct route south from Lord's.
Frequently asked questions
Can you visit the MCC Museum without taking a tour?
Not on an ordinary day. The museum sits inside the Pavilion complex and MCC does not sell a museum-only ticket; the guided tour is the standard way in. On match days it is open to spectators who already hold a match ticket.
Will I definitely see the Ashes urn?
Usually, but not guaranteed. The urn is normally on display in the MCC Museum, and it is the tour's headline object. It has occasionally travelled to exhibitions in Australia, and MCC warns that access to any advertised area can change at short notice because Lord's is a working ground.
How far in advance should I book a Lord's tour?
For a morning slot in high season, a few weeks. Afternoon slots often have space a few days ahead. Tours do not run on major match days at all, so check the fixture list for your date before booking flights or trains around it.
Is the Lord's tour suitable for children?
Yes for the standard tour, where children pay £22.95 and under-5s go free. The Tour Plus has a minimum age of 12, and the Australian Special and the Players' Dining Room Experience are for children aged 6 and over with an adult. A 100-minute walking tour is a long time for a small child.
Is Lord's step-free?
The ground itself is well provided for, with lifts to all levels of the Pavilion and the main stands and level roadways between them. Getting there is the harder part: MCC advises wheelchair users to travel by bus for the final stretch, using the 189 from Kilburn or the 13 from Golders Green, rather than the Tube.
Sources
- Marylebone Cricket Club - Lord's Guided Tour (checked September 2026)
- Marylebone Cricket Club - Lord's tours booking and availability (checked September 2026)
- Marylebone Cricket Club - The Ashes (checked September 2026)
- Marylebone Cricket Club - How to get to Lord's (checked September 2026)
- Marylebone Cricket Club - Accessibility at Lord's (checked September 2026)
- Marylebone Cricket Club - Ground Development (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - food hygiene rating register (checked September 2026)