Apsley House was the Duke of Wellington's London home and still holds his art collection, including a Velázquez that Wellington was given after Waterloo. Wellington Arch stands seventy metres away in the middle of the Hyde Park Corner roundabout, and you can climb it for a view down Constitution Hill. Both are English Heritage sites, both are cheap, and they are sold as separate tickets.
They are also easy to miss, because Hyde Park Corner is a traffic island and most people walk past on their way into Hyde Park or out of Mayfair. An hour and a half covers both properly.
Two sites, one roundabout
- Apsley House
- 149 Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner, W1J 7NT. Adult from £10.79 booked online (September 2026)
- Wellington Arch
- Apsley Way, Hyde Park Corner, W1J 7JZ. Adult from £6.88 booked online (September 2026)
- Open days, autumn 2026
- Apsley House Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00–17:00. Wellington Arch Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:00 (16:00 from late October)
- Closed
- Both closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and on 16 October 2026 for a private event
- Nearest station
- Hyde Park Corner (Piccadilly line), at the foot of both
Number One, London: what is inside Apsley House
Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, bought the house from his brother in 1817 and remodelled it between 1819 and 1829. Because it stood just inside the Knightsbridge turnpike gate, it picked up the nickname "Number One, London", the first house you reached on entering the city from the west. The Wellesley family still live in part of the building; the state rooms are the bit English Heritage opens.
The Waterloo Gallery is the set piece: a long gilded room built to hold the annual Waterloo Banquet, hung frame-to-frame with paintings. Many of them came to Wellington in a single stroke of luck. When Joseph Bonaparte fled Spain in 1813 his baggage train was captured at Vitoria, and it contained pictures taken from the Spanish royal collection. Ferdinand VII, restored to his throne, told Wellington to keep them. That is how a soldier's London house ended up with Velázquez, Goya, Titian, Rubens and Bruegel on the walls.
The Waterloo Banquet is worth understanding before you go in, because the gallery only makes sense once you do. Every 18 June, on the anniversary of the battle, Wellington sat his surviving officers down in that room and fed them. The table was extended year after year as the guest list grew, and the paintings were hung to be looked at over dinner by men who had been there. The room is a dining room pretending to be a picture gallery, which is why the hang is so crowded by modern standards.
The Dining Room holds the other half of the story: silver and porcelain given to Wellington by grateful European courts, including a Portuguese centrepiece long enough to fill most of the table. If you enjoy a private collection shown in the house it was assembled for, the Wallace Collection in Marylebone is the obvious companion visit, and it is free.
Photo: Enchufla Con Clave · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
What it costs to get into Apsley House
English Heritage prices by day of the week. Wednesday to Friday are off-peak, weekends are standard, and holiday periods move into the peak band. Booking online by midnight the day before is meaningfully cheaper than paying at the door.
| Apsley House ticket | Online, off-peak (Wed–Fri) | Online, standard (Sat–Sun) | At the door, off-peak | At the door, standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | £10.79 | £12.32 | £12.70 | £14.50 |
| Child 5–17 | £5.35 | £6.12 | £6.30 | £7.20 |
| Concession | £10.03 | £11.56 | £11.80 | £13.60 |
| Family (2 adults) | £27.03 | £30.85 | £31.80 | £36.30 |
These are the prices without the optional ten per cent donation, correct in September 2026. English Heritage members go free at both sites, with up to six accompanying children. A family of four visiting on a Thursday and booking ahead pays £27.03 for the house; the same family arriving on a Saturday without a booking pays £36.30. The difference is worth ten minutes on your phone the night before.
Climbing Wellington Arch
The arch was built in the 1820s and moved to its present position in 1882. On top sits the Quadriga, the Angel of Peace descending on the Chariot of War, which English Heritage describes as the largest bronze sculpture in Europe. Inside, three small floors of displays lead up to two open balconies.
The view is not the highest in London and it is not meant to compete with the towers in the City. What it offers instead is a low, close view along Constitution Hill towards Buckingham Palace, over the tops of the plane trees in Green Park, and straight down onto the traffic. Time it well and you will watch the Household Cavalry ride underneath on their way to or from Horse Guards; our page on the Changing of the Guard has the days and the times they set out.
The second floor carries a display about the Royal Regiment of Artillery in the First World War. The top two floors show changing contemporary art from the Vigo Gallery, which is a genuinely odd thing to find inside a triumphal arch and makes the climb more interesting than the exterior suggests.
| Wellington Arch ticket | Online, off-peak (Mon–Fri) | Online, standard (Sat–Sun) | At the door, standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | £6.88 | £7.65 | £9.00 |
| Child 5–17 | £3.40 | £3.82 | £4.50 |
| Concession | £6.12 | £6.88 | £8.10 |
| Family (2 adults) | £17.34 | £19.29 | £22.70 |
The arch lift was out of order in September 2026. English Heritage's own notice says so, which leaves the balconies reachable only by stairs. The arch also closes between 13:00 and 14:00 on some days, with last entry at 12:30. If stairs or timing are an issue, check the property page that morning and read our guide to accessible London for alternatives.
Is the view worth £6.88?
Honestly, only if you like the building. London has free high viewpoints that beat it on sheer altitude, and our comparison of London's viewing platforms and the round-up of free viewpoints both rank it below the City rooftops for the panorama alone.
What the arch gives you that they do not is proximity. You are looking down a royal processional route from the height of a fourth-floor window, close enough to see individual riders and the pattern of the gravel. It is a different pleasure from a 58th-floor sweep, and it takes twenty minutes.
The memorials on the traffic island
The ground around Wellington Arch is one of the densest concentrations of war memorials in Britain, and all of it is free and outdoors. Most visitors cross it without stopping.
The Royal Artillery Memorial, a stone howitzer pointing at the sky with four bronze gunners around its base, is the most uncompromising First World War memorial in London and worth ten minutes on its own. The Machine Gun Corps Memorial stands nearby with a bronze David holding Goliath's sword. On the Hyde Park side are the Australian and New Zealand memorials, the latter a field of bronze standards set into the grass, and the Commonwealth Memorial Gates commemorating service from Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent.
Together with the arch and the Wellington statue they make the whole junction a monument to two centuries of British campaigning, laid out in the order it happened. If you have an hour and no ticket money, this is the free version of the visit, and in November it is where the wreaths appear; see our guide to Remembrance Sunday in London.
Doing both in one visit
The two sites are seventy metres apart but separated by one of the busiest roundabouts in London. Use the pedestrian subways from Hyde Park Corner station, which is directly underneath: the signed exits bring you out beside each building without crossing any traffic.
A sensible order is arch first, house second. The arch opens at 10:00 and the house at 11:00, so you can climb, come down, and walk straight in. Allow 20 minutes for the arch and an hour for Apsley House. Both close on Mondays and Tuesdays through the autumn, and from January 2027 Apsley House drops to weekends only, so a midweek winter trip will find the house shut.
Buses along Piccadilly and Grosvenor Place stop within a minute of both; our guide to London buses explains how to use them without a map. If you are walking on afterwards, Bond Street and the Mayfair shops are ten minutes north-east, and Hyde Park itself starts at the far side of Apsley House.
Tours, evenings and quieter ways to see the house
English Heritage runs a Curator's Tour at Apsley House on the first Thursday of each month until December, from 11.15am to 12.30pm, and a British Sign Language guided tour on selected Saturdays (3 October in 2026). There are also occasional evening events with a theatrical framing, such as a murder mystery on 26 September 2026 and a costumed evening on 21 November 2026. These sell out well ahead and are listed on the property's What's On page.
Wednesday and Thursday mornings are the quietest ordinary times. The Waterloo Gallery holds perhaps a dozen people comfortably, and on a Saturday afternoon that is exactly how many will be in it.
Wellington is commemorated all over this corner of London, and the plaques that mark other residents of the same streets are worth a detour; our guide to London's blue plaques explains how to find them. For the other overlooked historic interiors in this section, see Eltham Palace and the rest of the landmarks and historic buildings list.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a joint ticket for Apsley House and Wellington Arch?
English Heritage's current price pages list the two sites separately, with their own tickets and their own booking calendars. English Heritage membership covers both, which is the only way to pay once for the pair. Check the two property pages before you buy in case a combined ticket is reintroduced.
Can you climb Wellington Arch?
Yes. A ticket takes you up through three floors of displays to two open balconies overlooking Hyde Park Corner and Constitution Hill. There is normally a lift, but it was out of service in September 2026, leaving stairs as the only route up.
Which paintings should I look for at Apsley House?
Velázquez's portrait of a water seller in Seville is the most celebrated work in the collection, and hangs in the Waterloo Gallery with pictures by Goya, Rubens, Titian and Bruegel. Many came from Joseph Bonaparte's captured baggage after the Battle of Vitoria in 1813.
How long do you need for both sites?
About 90 minutes in total: twenty minutes for the arch, an hour for the house, and ten minutes to move between them through the pedestrian subways. Add time if you plan to read the artillery display or the contemporary art at the top of the arch.
Are Apsley House and Wellington Arch open on Mondays?
No. Both were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays through autumn 2026. From January 2027 Apsley House opens at weekends only, while Wellington Arch stays open Wednesday to Sunday. Always check the prices and opening times page for the date you want.
Sources
- English Heritage - Apsley House: prices and opening times (checked September 2026)
- English Heritage - Apsley House (checked September 2026)
- English Heritage - Wellington Arch: prices and opening times (checked September 2026)
- English Heritage - Wellington Arch (checked September 2026)