Museums

We've included every museum in London. Use the filters to find something for you.

Tell us what we can do better, or what you’re trying to discover.

British Library

The national library, 200 million items behind Colin St John Wilson's red-brick ship at St Pancras, and one free room of its treasures, Magna Carta among them.

Photo by Patche99z, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Also in Power & Politics and Literary London.

The British Library holds a copy of everything published in Britain and Ireland and a great deal more, some 200 million items on shelves that grow by miles a year, and most of it lives in basements deep under the St Pancras building that Colin St John Wilson spent thirty-six years designing and building, the largest public building put up in Britain in the twentieth century. In the middle of the great entrance hall rises a six-storey glass tower holding George III's library, given by his son. The room to visit is the Treasures gallery, free and dim to protect what is in it: two of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta of 1215, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the only manuscript of Beowulf, Leonardo's notebook, Shakespeare's First Folio, Handel's Messiah in his own hand, Jane Austen's writing desk, and the Beatles' lyrics scribbled on the backs of envelopes and birthday cards. The reading rooms need a pass and the exhibitions charge; the piazza, the café and the treasures do not.

Where
96 Euston Road, NW1 2DB
Nearest station
St Pancras International · 3 min walk

On here now

Coming up

Also here

Hours

Monday09:30 – 20:00
Tuesday09:30 – 20:00
Wednesday09:30 – 20:00
Thursday09:30 – 20:00
Friday09:30 – 18:00
Saturday09:30 – 17:00
Sunday11:00 – 17:00

NearbyMuseums

NearbyOther Categories

See more nearby listings

Submit a correction for this listing.

Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

Which area are you in?