Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall is closed, and its own website gives no date for reopening. Its restaurant, Pharmacy 2, is closed as well. When it is open, entry is free and it is one of the best free hours in south London, so this page explains what is there, what to check before you travel, and what to do instead in the meantime.
The gallery shows work from Damien Hirst's private art collection rather than his own art, in a row of converted workshops on a back street between Vauxhall and Lambeth North. It has no permanent display: it mounts one large exhibition at a time, solo or group, and closes between them. Admission has always been free.
Our guide to London's free museums covers the national collections that are free by policy. This is a different kind of free: a private collection opened to the public at the owner's expense, which means it can also be shut at the owner's convenience.
Newport Street Gallery at a glance
- Address
- 1 Newport Street, London SE11 6AJ
- Status (28 September 2026)
- Closed. No reopening date published
- Admission when open
- Free
- Nearest station
- Vauxhall (Victoria line and National Rail), a 10-minute walk
- The building
- Nos 1–7 Newport Street, built 1913 as theatre scenery workshops; grade II listed 1991
- Architects of the conversion
- Caruso St John
- Size
- 37,000 square feet, six exhibition spaces on two levels
- Tours
- None. The gallery does not offer tours or group visits
Closed, with no date, and a website that has stopped moving
When we read the gallery's own pages on 28 September 2026, the home page said the gallery was currently closed and asked visitors to keep checking the site for updates. The visitor page repeated it and added that the gallery's cafe, Pharmacy 2, was also closed. No reopening date appeared anywhere.
There are two reasons to treat that as the real position rather than a leftover notice. The most recent exhibition, Jack White: THESE THOUGHTS MAY DISAPPEAR, ran from 29 May to 13 September 2026 and nothing has replaced it. And Pharmacy 2 no longer appears on the Food Standards Agency's register at all, which for a restaurant is a reliable sign that it has stopped trading.
The counter-argument is that the site is not well maintained. Its visitor page still carries a section headed COVID-19, with advice about cleaning regimes, which places the last serious edit some years ago. So the honest instruction is the unsatisfying one: do not travel to Newport Street without checking that day, and do not build a morning around it.
Two other London galleries do the same thing between shows. A privately funded gallery with no permanent collection can be dark for months. Two Temple Place is shut between exhibitions in the same way, and the Saatchi Gallery closes for days at a time while installations go in. Always check the specific date.
What the building actually is
This is the part that survives whether the gallery is open or not, and it is genuinely unusual. Nos 1 to 7 Newport Street were purpose-built in 1913 as workshops for the London theatre industry: a carpentry shop for props and scenery at Nos 1 and 3, and a painted scenery shop at Nos 5 and 7. Historic England listed the group at grade II on 25 January 1991 under the name Mara's Scene Painting Shop.
The statutory list entry names the people involved. The designs were by John A J Woodward of Kennington Oval, the London County Council's District Surveyor for the area, and the builder was George Brittain, contractor to the Duchy of Cornwall Estate. The carpentry shop was first occupied by John Brinskill; the painting shop was first run by William Raphael and originally held eight painting frames working in pairs.
Four of those frames survive at No 5. They run the full height and width of the building, so a canvas could be stretched and then inched up and down while the artist worked from the first floor. The list entry gives their drop as 24 feet and their widths as between 41 feet 10 inches and 49 feet 6 inches, the variation caused by the angled shape of the site. No 7 lost four frames to bomb damage; the gaps in its first floor and part of the hand-pulley system are still there, under a roof of what Historic England calls scientific kingpost form.
Historic England knows of only four early theatrical painting workshops in England, and says the other three are ten years older. Newport Street is the only one that could design and build an entire set in one place. That is why the buildings were listed, and it is a better reason to look at them from the pavement than most listed buildings can offer.
Look up at No 7. The second floor has circular windows, and the gable ends in carved kneelers. The gallery's front is deliberately quiet, so the theatrical detail is above eye level rather than at it.
What Caruso St John did with them
The conversion joined the three listed workshops to two new buildings, so the gallery now runs along about half the length of the street. The architects were Caruso St John. The gallery gives the result as 37,000 square feet with six exhibition spaces on two levels, one of them with an 11-metre ceiling, and a pair of staircases that are the most photographed thing in the building.
For a visitor the effect is that the rooms are much larger than the street suggests. Nothing outside prepares you for the volume inside, which is also true of Battersea Power Station a mile upriver, and much less true of most new London galleries.
What gets shown here
The gallery exists to show Hirst's collection, which he has spent decades assembling, and its programme alternates between single-artist retrospectives and group shows on a theme. Past exhibitions have covered artists better known in America than in Britain, and the scale of the rooms suits large paintings and installations.
There is no permanent hang and no collection display, which is the single most important thing to understand before travelling: if the current exhibition has closed, there is nothing at all to see inside. That is the opposite of how Tate Britain or the Imperial War Museum work, and it catches people out.
Pharmacy 2, the restaurant people came for
The gallery's restaurant was fitted out as an artwork in its own right, using the pill cabinets and butterfly motifs from Hirst's earlier Notting Hill restaurant, and for several years it drew people who had no intention of looking at the art. It is closed, and it has left the hygiene register, so treat it as gone until the gallery says otherwise.
If lunch is the point of the trip, walk instead: our Vauxhall and Oval guide covers the Portuguese cafes on South Lambeth Road, five minutes away, and the Garden Museum ten minutes north has a well-regarded cafe of its own inside a deconsecrated church.
Getting there, and why Vauxhall beats Kennington
The gallery lists four Underground options and the distances are not equal. Vauxhall, on the Victoria line and the national rail network, is a ten-minute walk and the obvious choice; Lambeth North on the Bakerloo line is twelve minutes; Kennington on the Northern line is fifteen; Waterloo is twenty. Coming from the West End or from Victoria, the Victoria line gets you closest for the least walking.
Buses drop you nearer than any Tube. Route 360 stops on Black Prince Road, three minutes away. Routes 3, 77, 344, 507 and C10 stop at Lambeth Palace, five minutes away. Routes 59 and 159 stop at Fitzalan Street, six minutes away.
There is no visitor car park. The bays on Newport Street are for permit holders between 08:30 and 18:30 Monday to Friday, and the nearest pay-and-display bays are on Juxon Street, five minutes away, with a four-hour maximum stay. Blue Badge holders may use residents' bays with the badge displayed. Cyclists get 16 racks outside the main entrance, and the nearest Santander Cycles docking stations are on Lollard Street and Black Prince Road.
Access, bags and the rules inside
The gallery describes itself as fully accessible from the Newport Street entrance, with a lift to all floors, one wheelchair that can be booked in advance, a hearing loop at reception and guide dogs welcome. There are lockers for small bags, but large bags and suitcases are not allowed in the galleries.
No food or drink in the exhibition rooms, no flash photography, and no professional photography or filming without written agreement. The gallery also says plainly that it cannot offer tours or arrange group visits, so a school or coach party has nowhere to book.
What to do instead while it is shut
The half-mile between Newport Street and the river holds more free art than the gallery itself. The Imperial War Museum is ten minutes east and free. The grounds of Lambeth Palace and the Garden Museum beside it are five minutes north. Tate Britain is twenty minutes' walk across Lambeth Bridge, or one stop on the river bus.
Further afield, the Whitechapel Gallery in east London runs a similar mix of large temporary shows with free rooms alongside a paid one, and it does not go dark between seasons. Our list of free things to do in London has more.
Frequently asked questions
Is Newport Street Gallery open?
Not as of 28 September 2026. The gallery's own home page and visitor page both say it is currently closed and give no reopening date, and its restaurant Pharmacy 2 is closed too. Check the gallery's website on the morning you plan to go rather than relying on listings sites.
Is Newport Street Gallery free?
Yes. Admission has always been free, with no ticket and no booking, because the gallery is privately funded by Damien Hirst to show his own art collection. There is no charge for the exhibitions or for using the lockers and toilets.
Which Tube station is nearest to Newport Street Gallery?
Vauxhall, on the Victoria line and the national rail network, is a ten-minute walk and the best choice. Lambeth North is twelve minutes, Kennington fifteen and Waterloo twenty. Bus 360 stops on Black Prince Road, three minutes from the door.
Is the gallery building listed?
Yes. Nos 1 to 7 Newport Street, built in 1913 as theatre carpentry and scenery-painting workshops, were listed at grade II on 25 January 1991. Historic England records four surviving painting frames inside, with a 24-foot drop, and says only four such workshops are known in England.
Can I still eat at Pharmacy 2?
No. The gallery says the cafe is closed, and the restaurant no longer appears on the Food Standards Agency's hygiene register, which normally means a business has stopped trading. There are alternatives five to ten minutes' walk away in Vauxhall and beside Lambeth Palace.
Sources
- Newport Street Gallery - home page, closure notice (checked September 2026)
- Newport Street Gallery - Visit, access and travel (checked September 2026)
- Newport Street Gallery - About the gallery and its building (checked September 2026)
- Historic England - Mara's Scene Painting Shop, Nos 1-7 Newport Street, list entry 1249942 (statutory description read on an Internet Archive copy dated 24 January 2025; the live site blocks our requests; checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - hygiene ratings register (no entry for Pharmacy 2) (checked September 2026)