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Thirty places to see first, in order, for somebody who has never been to London. Each says what it is, whether it is free, whether you must book, and whether the queue is worth it.
Five thousand years of what people have made: clothes, jewellery, furniture, and halls of plaster casts of Europe's monuments. Free, with the exhibitions ticketed.
The V&A is the world's largest museum of applied and decorative art and design, and it began as an argument about trade. The Government School of Design was founded in 1832 because ministers feared that badly designed British goods would lose their markets, and after the Great Exhibition of 1851 Henry Cole and Prince Albert turned its teaching collection into a museum in South Kensington, opened in 1857 in iron sheds so plain they were called the Brompton Boilers, with the first museum restaurant in the world. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone of Aston Webb's grand front on Cromwell Road in 1899 and gave the museum its name; Edward VII opened it in 1909.
The collection spans five thousand years and 2.8 million objects across 145 galleries, seven miles of them: the Cast Courts, the Raphael Cartoons, the Jewellery Gallery, the Gilbert Collection, Islamic Middle East around the Ardabil Carpet, Europe 1600 – 1815, Design 1900 – Now, Theatre and Performance and the Photography Centre, with medieval and Renaissance sculpture — the largest holding outside Italy — running through the middle of the building. Tipu's Tiger, a mechanical organ in the shape of a tiger eating a British soldier, and the Great Bed of Ware are both here somewhere. The John Madejski Garden, with its shallow oval pool, is where to stop when the scale defeats you. Entry is free, and since 2017 the porcelain-tiled courtyard of the Exhibition Road Quarter is the other way in. The Fashion Gallery is shut for redevelopment until autumn 2028.
Step-free access
| Monday | 10:00 – 17:45 |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 10:00 – 17:45 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 – 17:45 |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 17:45 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 22:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 17:45 |
| Sunday | 10:00 – 17:45 |
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Photo by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.