- London
- /
- museum
- (22)
-
United Kingdom
London benefits from a host of world-class museums. The UK benefits from free access to most museums so you can pop in whenever you want, however, you may also want to arrange to have your corporate event there to provide entertainment at the same time.
When in London, a visit to Greenwich is a must. See the Observatory and take a walk at Greenwich Park, and visit the National Maritime Museum that has free admission daily 10.00 am to 17.00 pm.
www.hotelara.com/england/2007/10/westminster-to-greenwich-boat-trip.html
Walk into the museum and some huge, colourful, hanging fish point you downstairs to a magical world of masks, music and even a mermaid (well, actually a sort of monkey I think, but that's another story).
The fabulous music room has interactive tables where you can listen to music from around the world, and from other centuries, whilst looking at a most extraordinary menagerie of instruments. You can then wander through a secret door into a space where you can play delicately on a dulcimer, or bash out a tune with flip flops on some special pipes.
Next door there are some darkened, mysterious rooms full of mummies, voodoo shrines and bizarre objects of intrigue from around the world.
Wander out of the galleries and into a fab new aquarium with real waves. There are sci fi-like jelly fish, haughty seahorses, and starfish like jesters' hats. Wonder at the groovy anenomes! Dress up as a crab!
Blimey! After that it's time for a spot of v yummy lunch in the very me friendly cafe, and perhaps a little something from the shop (please). And what about the bee room, with real bees, and the stuffed animals. Oh, and there are gardens with rabbits and birds. And a big polar bear upstairs........
I love the Horniman!
From Xavi Maddison (age 10).
100 London Road, Forest Hill
Tel: 020 8699 1872
www.horniman.ac.uk
Gunnersbury Park Museum is a very fun place because you can go in to a Victorian kitchen and dress-up as an olden-days servant. I was a kitchen maid and all the boys had yellow waistcoats. I actually wore one of the kitchen maid's hats and matching aprons.
I also wore a corset. It made my belly thin but it wasn't uncomfortable. A posh teacher used to wear it, she taught at the top of the house.
I saw olden-days shops there with things inside like wooden toys and printers which are not like ours, and a wooden mangle which dries clothes.
I am five years old.
This is a great place to go anytime of the year. I like it because there are lots of things to play and interact with and you can learn about new and unusual things while having fun. I’ve been lots of times and I never tire because I know there will be new exhibits each time I go.
From Neill Andrew (age 12).
Mill Green Museum is a fully working watermill (undershot wheel) run by volunteers and housing the local museum for Hatfield, Herts. You can watch milling of organic flour every week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday, and see the waterwheel in action every day (except for Monday when the mill is closed), which my children love to see.
Lots of gears and cogs and flour leaking out. Children can try grinding corn the hard way or the easy way. In the summer there is a small cafe with outdoor seats in the sensory garden. There is also a local collection of bits of history, with things for children to find.
And it's all free.
Mill Green
Hatfield
Herts AL9 5PD
www.hertsmuseums.org.uk/millgreen/
Tel: 01707 271362
Nearest station is Hatfield (Herts) 23 mins from London Kings Cross every 30 mins (Mon-Sat), 1 fast per hour Sundays, plus two slower. Then either a 20 min walk, 5 mins on a bike National Cycle Network route 12 or bus 301 or 603 every 15 mins, 5 mins ride.
By car, follow signs from A1(M) junctions 3 or 4.
A fantastic example of both Victorian architecture and Victorian engineering. It was the cornerstone of the revolutionary sewage system designed and engineered by Joseph Bazalgette in 1865 and contains four beam engines built by James Watt and Sons. It also has some of the finest decorative cast iron work in London.
Now a museum it is being lovingly restored by a team of volunteers after years of neglect and vandalism. Open only 2 days a month with several special Steaming Days. Check the website for details. Well worth the visit.
An easy 30-minute walk from Abbey Wood train station or a short minicab ride from station. It has a large car park if you drive yourself.
The Old Works
Crossness S.T.W.
Belvedere Road
Abbey Wood
London SE2 9AQ
www.crossness.org.uk/
Tucked away next to The Barbican, this museum 'does what it says on the tin'; it's about the history of London, from prehistory to modern times. I've been coming here, on and off, since I was 13; my son is now that age, and loves it as much as I do!
All Londoners should visit here at least once, to help your understanding of what makes London the unique world city we live in. With lots of interactivity for the children, and well laid out exhibits for the rest of us!
Just one tip; the Museum Cafe is good for a cup of coffee and a sticky bun, but I wouldn't recommend it for lunch.
www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/
Nearest Tube, Barbican or St Pauls
Recently refurbished, this is one of London's best museums. It has huge displays on such topics as the history of cruising and interactive exhibits like the ferry piloting simulator. The cafe round the back is rather nice too. A walk across the road will take you into the old naval college, whose chapel has a superb painted ceiling.
Park Row, Greenwich; tel: 020 8858 4422;
www.nmm.ac.uk/
Brilliant fun, which I never thought I'd say about a museum visit. Sleeping with mummies - of the Egyptian variety - is a much easier way to sell the kids on a trip to the museum, too, and when the lights go off and the torches come out everyone turned into a mini Indiana Jones. Dressing up — tabards in our case as it was medieval theme — and lots of activities made it a really memorable outing. But remember to take a good roll-out mattress.
tel: 0207 323 8195; www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk;
The next sleepover is a Bengal theme on Sept 16-17, 2006;
Cost: £27.50, but you have to be a Young Friend of the Museum (membership £20) or a full member to book.
We loved this museum! It seems impossible that one man could have collected so much. While there is a great deal to see, one doesn't feel overwhelmed as in the British Museum. The Hogarths are wonderful. One of the staff, who obviously loves the paintings, spent a great deal of time with my husband and me pointing out and explaining the hundreds of details in the paintings. A most memorable afternoon.
13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC
Holburn LU
Free admission: a great benefit in a wonderful, but expensive, city
The Transport Museum at Covent Garden is currently closed for refurbishment (until spring 2007), but in the meantime, you can see some of the exhibits while they’re being stored at the Museum Depot in Acton. There are guided tours and open weekends to see some of the old vehicles, uniforms, posters and photos normally associated with the museum.
Gunnersbury Lane, W3 - very close to Acton Town tube
www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/depot.html
Architect Sir John Soane's house, museum and library. Soane designed this house to live in, but also as a setting for his collections of antiquities and works of art. The museum was opened for the benefit of students when Soane was made Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy in 1806 and on his death in 1837 a trust was established to maintain the Museum, 'as nearly as circumstances will admit' in the state in which it was left. Both the collections and the house itself are fantastic and admission is free.
13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, +44 (0) 20 7440 4263 www.soane.org/ nearest tube - Holborn
A quirky museum detailing the 400-year-old history of tea and coffee, from the British persepective. It's quaint rather than hi-tech but you won't find many places that serve up a better cuppa.
Near London Bridge. www.bramahmuseum.co.uk/tea/index.htm
Where to begin? One of the most beautiful buildings in London is also home to one of the richest natural history collections in the world. This is also one of the few museums that pulls off the trick of being immediate and exciting enough for children while providing the kind of depth that keeps adults coming back time and again. Unbelievably, it's also free.
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD; Nearest tube: South Kensington; www.nhm.ac.uk/
The basement at the Science Museum is great for kids. Experiments and puzzles that make up a world of edutainment.
Exhibition Road, SW7; Tel: 0870 870 4868; Tube: South Kensington; www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
The first museum to celebrate diversity, this run-down home in the East end was once the home of a Huguenot master silk weaver and hides a rare surviving synagogue built over its garden. Check the website for details of the occasional public open-days.
19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields; Tube: Liverpool Street, Aldgate, Aldgate East; www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/
The shops, street performers and cafes are always a treat for the eye, and within a few hundred yards there's also the newly refurbished Royal Opera House with its stunning glass facade, the lightweight but fun theatre museum and the peace and quiet of St Paul's church.
Tube: Covent Garden
Two museums, right next door to each other, and a great way to occupy all of the family.
The Natural History Museum is wonderful before you enter it, a beautiful example of Victorian extravagance. Plenty to see and do, especially the dinosaurs; be warned though, the animatronic T Rex is very real and great for scaring small children! There's a decent little coffee shop, although it was a bit disturbing eating chocolate cake sat next to Chi Chi the Panda!
The Science Museum is more modern, although the exhibits go back some way. All kids will love the 'Launchpad' area in the basement, all hands on, noisy, messy and great fun. The Deep Blue Cafe does a decent lunch as well.
Both museums have regular exhibitions as well, although these will have an entry charge; usually well worth it though. There is also an Imax Cinema in the Science Museum, any of the underwater or outer space movies are good value.
www.nhm.ac.uk/
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
South Kensington Underground
A surgical museum with a huge collection of medical artefacts, including the pickled remains of unusual animals and humans - from the 7 feet 8 inch real skeleton of a giant from Ireland, to the digestive organs of exotic animals and pickled genitalia. Intriguing, but not for the fainthearted. It's housed upstairs from the Royal College of Surgeons, and not advertised from the outside, so remains something of a hidden treasure.
Hunterian Museum, The Royal College of Surgeons of England
35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE
Tel: 020 7869 6560, Textphone/Typetalk users: 18001 020 7869 6560
Email: museums@rcseng.ac.uk
Send your feedback or queries to been.there@guardian.co.uk
Search Been there
Your tips about London