London’s Best Museums

Apsley House - The Duke of Wellington’s mansion is filled with his memorabilia and art collection won during his campaigns and at the Battle of Waterloo4

Bank of England Museum - This museum tells the story of money and the Bank of England, and has lots of interesting old paintings and photos6

Benjamin Franklin House - Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers whohelped to draft the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence3

Billingsgate Roman House & Baths - The archaeological remains of a Roman house from 200 AD, buried in an office basement on Lower Thames Street2

British Library - The Treasures of the British Library Exhibition contains works and letters by the likes of Henry VIII, Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare4

British Museum - One of the world’s great museums with objects from ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome, plus artefacts from Asia, Africa and the Americas6

Charles Dickens Museum - The Victorian novelist lived in this house during the 1830s when he was writing Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers4

Churchill War Rooms - The atmospheric tunnels under Whitehall look exactly as they did when Churchill met with his cabinet during the Blitz6

Clink Prison - Located on the site of the notorious medieval gaol, the Clink Prison Museum is a good day out for kids and less-scary than the London Dungeon4

Cutty Sark - During the 1870s this famous old clipper ship used to sail to China in world record times. Now you can explore its cabins and walk around the deck6

Design Museum - The Design Museum takes the best of 20th and 21st-century design and reveals how consumers’ tastes have changed through the decades4

Dr Johnson’s House - A Georgian townhouse that was home to the writer Samuel Johnson best known for writing the first English dictionary3

Fleming Museum - Fleming’s old laboratory at St. Mary’s Hospital where the Nobel Prize-winning doctor discovered penicillin has now been turned into a museum3

Florence Nightingale Museum - St. Thomas’ Hospital has a museum about the Victorian nurse Florence Nightingale and her work in the Crimean War3

Garden Museum - St. Mary-at-Lambeth houses a museum about the early days of gardening with a graveyard out the back containing the tomb of Captain Bligh3

Golden Hinde - This replica of the ship which carried Sir Francis Drake around the world has plenty of decks and cabins for your kids to walk around and explore8

Guards’ Museum - Discover the history of the Foot Guards: the Coldstream, Grenadier, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards, and see some Waterloo memorabilia2

Guildhall Art Gallery - This is much more than an art gallery because it contains the archaeological remains of London’s Roman amphitheatre in the basement4

Handel & Hendrix in London - This building was once home to two very different musicians: the German composer Handel and guitar hero Jimi Hendrix4

HMS Belfast - This cruiser fought in World War II and Korea and you can walk through the bridge, engine rooms, missile rooms, mess hall and crew cabins6

Household Cavalry Museum - Discover the history of the Household Cavalry and look through a window into the stables where they groom the horses3

Hunterian Museum - Housed inside the Royal College of Surgeons and filled with specimens, skeletons and the fossilised remains of old animals and humans1

Imperial War Museum - This museum tells the story of the British Army during the Empire, World War I and II, right up to the Falkands and Gulf10

Jewel Tower - The Jewel Tower was part of the old Palace of Westminster and houses a small exhibition about the history of the building2

Leighton House Museum - This house was once home to the Victorian artist Lord Frederic Leighton and contains some Pre-Raphaelite paintings2

London Canal Museum - This museum tells the story of the Regent’s Canal and how they transported the cargos by barge. There’s also a small dock out the back2

London Mithraeum - The remains of the Temple of Mithras, a well-reserved building from Roman London, can be found inside the Bloomberg building5

Museum of London - The history of London from prehistoric times through the Roman, medieval, Tudor and Victorian eras, right up to the Swinging Sixties4

Museum of London Docklands - This museum tells the story of how London’s river became one of the world’s busiest docks, and what it’s used for today4

Museum of the Home - This unusual museum explores how home life has changed from the 1600s to the present day. It’s housed inside an 18th-century almshouse3

National Army Museum - This museum tells the history of the British military from the Battle of Agincourt through the Battle of Waterloo, and right up to World War II4

National Maritime Museum - The National Maritime Museum has a collection of historical artefacts like Nelson’s jacket from the Battle of Trafalgar3

Natural History Museum - A great museum for kids if they’re interested in dinosaurs, with a whole zoo’s-worth of stuffed mammals, fish and birds4

Old Operating Theatre - An original 19th-century herb garrett and operating theatre which miraculously survived intact at the very top of St. Thomas’s Church3

Petrie Museum - The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology has cabinets full of ancient Egyptian pottery, sarcophagi, tombstones and decorated jewellery3

Postal Museum - This museum contains much more than letters and stamps – you can also ride an old mail train through the tunnels that run under London3

Royal Mews - A working stables for the horses that pull the royal carriages. You can also see the Queen’s limousines, State Coaches and Gold State Coach6

St. John’s Gate - Once part of Clerkenwell Priory, the headquarters of the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who gained fame during the Crusades2

Science Museum - A great museum for kids if they like space. It also has lots of early inventions and vehicles, an IMAX cinema and some flight simulators6

Sherlock Holmes Museum - 221b Baker Street has been decorated to look like the home of the fictional detective and filled with Holmes memorabilia4

Sir John Soane’s Museum - This house has to be seen to be believed, it’s crammed full of ancient artefacts and an Egyptian pharaoh’s sarcophagi1

Transport Museum - The Transport Museum contains a collection of early trains and buses, from horse-drawn coaches right up to today’s red Routemasters5

Victoria & Albert Museum - Highlights include the Cast Room and Raphael’s Cartoons, which were his preparatory studies for the Sistine Chapel7

Wallace Collection - Part art gallery and part museum, the Wallace Collection has old armour, French furnishings, and paintings like The Laughing Cavalier4

18 Stafford Terrace - Edward Linley Sambourne’s Victorian home still looks like it did in the late 19th-century, when he worked as an illustrator for Punch1