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Eight million objects and the first national museum in the world, free since 1759: the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures and Sutton Hoo under one roof.
Public galleryFree
Also in Museums.
The British Museum was the first museum of its kind anywhere: national, belonging to neither church nor king, free to everyone and meant to collect everything. It began with the will of Sir Hans Sloane, a physician who had gathered 71,000 objects, books, dried plants and antiquities and offered them to the nation for £20,000, a fraction of what they were worth. Parliament accepted in 1753, raised the money by lottery, and the museum opened in Montagu House in Bloomsbury in 1759. Robert Smirke's quadrangle replaced the house from the 1820s, and the round Reading Room in its courtyard, where Marx and Lenin worked, held the national library until the books left for St Pancras in 1997. Norman Foster then roofed the courtyard in glass, and the Great Court of 2000 is the largest covered square in Europe.
The collection, eight million objects, is the largest in the world and grew with the empire, which is why some of the best-known things in it are formally claimed by the countries they came from. Sixty-odd galleries hold it: Egyptian sculpture and the Rosetta Stone on the ground floor, the Parthenon sculptures and the Assyrian palace reliefs off the same route, and upstairs the mummies, Sutton Hoo, Japan, China and South Asia, the Islamic world, clocks, money and Mexico, with the Enlightenment Gallery and the Waddesdon Bequest just inside the Great Court. Six and a half million people came in 2025. Entry is free, and only the loan exhibitions charge.
Step-free access
| Monday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 20:30 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
| Sunday | 10:00 – 17:00 |
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.