London has a lot to offer by way of museums. You could spend weeks in the British Museum alone, but what’s great is the diversity of interests they serve. If you’re a fan of cartoons, or design, or you want to experience Sherlock Holmes’ London, you can find a delightful, enriching, and educational way to spend an afternoon. The biggest problem you might find is that most of them are free, making it nearly impossible to choose where to go first.
Below, we’ve outlined 25 of our favorite museums and galleries in London—just as a starting point.
Major Museums
The Tate Modern
The former Bankside Power Station has been Britain’s home for Modern and Contemporary art since 2000. Its central turbine hall—an atrium six stories high—has been the site of Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds and Louise Bourgeois’s I Do, I Undo, I Redo. It continues to be the ultimate stage for contemporary artists around the world.
The Tate Britain
The Tate Britain has the world’s largest collection of paintings by J.M.W. Turner, and if that’s not enough, there are hundreds of Renaissance masterpieces, Sir John Everett Millais’ world-famous painting of Ophelia, and a restaurant covered in murals by Rex Whistler. You could spend walk into the Tate and easily never leave.
The British Museum
The collection of the British Museum is frequently under fire, and for good reason, but it’s also simply one of the most breathtaking museums on the planet. Hits include the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles. Fans of design will marvel at ceramics from around the planet, and architecture buffs can stand under the ceiling of the Great Court for hours and never tire.
The British Library
Fans of Austen, Shakespeare, and Brontë all swoon appropriately when arriving at the plaza outside of one of the world’s largest libraries. Among its 14 million titles are the Magna Carta, Beowulf, and The Canterbury Tales. Towering metal cases go on for stories and stories on end, and golden lights illuminate the works like something from the heavens. It’s a reader’s paradise.
The National Gallery
The National Gallery, right in the center of Trafalgar Square, was created through an act of Parliament (rather than a donated collection) more than 200 years ago. Today’s National Gallery is a London must-see for a reason. Among the standout works are Holbein’s endlessly elusive The Ambassadors, Vermeer’s Lady Seated at a Virginal, and Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks.
The National Portrait Gallery
From Queen Elizabeth II to Idris Elba to David Bowie, you can find thousands of great Britons depicted in the National Portrait Gallery. Right in the heart of Trafalgar Square, the museum is full of some of the images that have created our cultural understandings of Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Anne Boleyn, and many more. After a closure that lasted more than three years, it re-opened in 2023 with new educational centers, exhibition spaces, and custom bronze entry doors featuring portraits of women by British artist Tracey Emin.
The Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria & Albert Museum, or the V&A as it is often called, is England’s pre-eminent destination for decorative arts and design. One of the UK’s most popular museums, it has nearly 3 million objects (and is actually part of a network of museums from Dundee to Stoke-on-Trent). You could spend a week rambling inside its Edwardian red brick halls of Korean vases, 19th century gowns, and historic manuscripts, and if you do plan to do so, make sure to stop for tea in the lovely courtyard.
The Science Museum
The London Science Museum is full of endless wonders across two buildings and three floors. The “Exploring Space” gallery is a true crowd pleaser, where visitors can fulfill dreams straight out of Star Trek. Walls are piled high with classic cars; slides function in place of stairs, and a massive IMAX screen takes viewers across the wonders of the Earth. It’s one of the city’s most popular museums for a reason.
The Natural History Museum
Once chaired by the man who came up with the term “dinosaur,” the Natural History Museum feels like Hogwarts. Perhaps it’s the ridged vaulted ceiling and gothic sensibility, or maybe it’s all the walls of curiosities. Skeletons of Dodos, Great Auks, and all manner of dinosaurs. Other, more contemporary, delights include a massive glowing globe and a fiery red orb surrounding the escalator.
The Tower of London
One of the most infamous, and purportedly haunted, buildings in England, the Tower of London has been the final home for some of history’s greatest doomed figures, including Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, and Lady Jane Grey. Perhaps the most spectacular items on display, though, are the Crown Jewels, covered in diamonds, rubies, and ermine. It’s also surprisingly one of the most hands-on museums in London, full of games and opportunities to touch artifacts. While you’re there, make sure to look for the resident ravens.
The Royal Academy
The Royal Academy is open throughout the year and frequently has exciting exhibitions from well-known artists. But, the annual highlight is the Summer Exhibition, where every year for the last 256 years the Academy displays all manner of artwork. Can you imagine a more perfect July afternoon than sipping champagne (often on offer) and wandering throughout the galleries?
The Wallace Collection
The Swing (1767)
The Wallace Collection is located in the former home of the Marquesses of Hertford in the heart of Marylebone. The state purchased the building in 1900 to house a collection of 5,000 pieces bequeathed by Lady Wallace (a Hertford by marriage), including porcelain, furniture, and masterpieces by the likes of Gainsborough and Van Dyck. The star piece of the collection, though, might be Fragonard’s The Swing, one of the cheekiest works of the Ancien Régime.
House and Palaces
Kenwood House
Taylor Swift is famously a fan of Hampstead Heath, and we can only assume that includes Kenwood House, the Georgian family home that sits atop a hill on the Heath. It’s a rare place in London that feels like it’s in the middle of the countryside, and Jane Austen’s countryside at that. A collection of paintings going back hundreds of years includes the famed portrait of Dido Belle, a British Black heiress and scion of the Mansfield Family.
Sir John Soane’s Museum
Perhaps no museum is as mesmerizingly crowded as Sir John Soane’s Museum in Holborn. Though works by Hogarth, Turner, and Lawrence are must-sees, the standouts here are overwhelmingly arranged fragments of Greek and Roman buildings and antiquarian busts. The best part? Much of it is displayed just as it was when former owner John Soane lived there in the early 19th century. Soane arranged to give the house to the state as a museum during his lifetime, in order to avoid bequeathing it to his son.
Leighton House Museum
The Leighton House Museum is full of elaborate Orientalist and Aestheticist interiors. Since 1929, the former home of artist Baron Frederic Leighton has been a house museum. Leighton was a master of the pre-Raphaelite style, and his biblical and classical masterpieces make up the museum’s art collection.
Sambourne House Museum
The Sambourne House museum is a must-do for fans of William Morris and the Aestheticism movement of which he was a part. There are many collections of Aesthetic art at the former home of the aristocratic family, and visitors can wander through room after room brimming with charming knickknacks, photographs, and cartoons (illustrated by the former owner, Linley Sambourne). It also happened to be a filming location for movies like A Room with a View, Maurice, and Brideshead Revisited and tv series including Jeeves and Wooster.
Kensington Palace
If you’re a fan of the royal family, then KP, as it’s called in the firm, is a can’t-miss. But it’s also an all around crowd-pleaser, with collections of spectacular period clothing owned by Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, and Catherine, the Princess of Wales, rooms of art and furniture, and Queen Victoria’s very own doll house.
The Royal Mews
Hidden away behind a narrow round arch is another must-visit for fans of the royal family. The Mews is where the royals keep their carriages when not in use. Learn the difference between a landau and a state coach, tack up a wooden horse, and wander through the family’s own stables in a quiet spot close to Buckingham Palace.
London History
Churchill War Rooms
Just before the Second World War, the Air Ministry built an underground command center with the understanding that London was likely to be frequently bombed. More than 75 years later, the Churchill War Rooms has become one of London’s most popular tourist destinations. Just a block away from Downing Street and Big Ben, tourists are led down below street level to see war maps, telegraphs, and the bed where Churchill used to sleep during long nights at the office.
Sherlock Holmes Museum
The Sherlock Holmes Museum is like a house museum but for a fictional character, complete with sitting rooms, bedrooms, and dozens of discrete locations to hide poison. Taking the official address of 221B Baker Street, where the world’s most famous detective lived, you’ll find one of England’s famous blue plaques, designating it is as a home of a significant person. Inside, you’ll find all sorts of Easter Eggs, and a gift shop perfect for any Sherlock fan in your life.
Bow Street Museum of Crime and Justice
If you’re a true crime junkie, this one’s for you. The Bow Street Museum is a relatively recent addition to the city, having opened in 2021. Though as with all things in London, the building itself is much older. It first opened as a court for the Bow Street Runners, the famed first police force in the city in 1740. Inside, you’ll find courts and images of those who were formally incarcerated at the site, including Oscar Wilde.
The Cartoon Museum
The Cartoon Museum is without a doubt one of the most fun museums in London. Visitors are transported into comic books, rooms full of pop art, and invited to illustrate their own. It’s the perfect place for kids (and kids at heart).
Galleries
The White Cube Gallery
White Cube is one of London’s hallmark galleries. You can find works by Anselm Kiefer, Damien Hirst, and Isamu Noguchi. As the name suggests, the gallery serves as a blank canvas for modern and contemporary art. If you’re looking to expand your artistic education to the greats of today, this is the place to start.
The Serpentine
The Serpentine Galleries may be most famous for their annual Summer Party, where they reveal a temporary pavilion. The party is often sponsored by Chanel and always filled with the great and good of London society, from Princess Beatrice to Cate Blanchett. On any given year, visitors can find themselves walking through a glass tunnel or admiring a space age pyramid. Both of the gallery’s buildings are in Kensington Gardens, a handy walk over for former patron Princess Diana.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery
Sitting on the outskirts of Belair Park, another charming country retreat in the center of bustling London, the Dulwich Picture Gallery is a peaceful spot to commune with the Old Masters. On Sundays, make sure to stop by their farmer’s market after enjoying the Rembrandts.
The Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery has been a mainstay of the art world since the 1980s for a reason. Everyone from Donald Judd to Kiki Smith and Stella McCartney has exhibited here. The Palladian building that houses the gallery, called the Duke of York’s HQ, is more than 200 years old and provides a contrast from the minimalist art inside.
Dorothy Scarborough (she/her) is the assistant to the Editor in Chief of Town & Country and Elle Decor.
