museums in London.

London Museums and Galleries

There are a lot of museums in London. Londoners are proud of their museums. Crowds of people visit museums admiring beautiful collections. Some of them more than 700 years old.

The British Museum was founded 250 years ago as an encyclopedia of nature and of art. Its collections, which number more than 7 million objects, are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents.

This is the Great Court of the British Museum. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000.
British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. Since 1997 it is a museum.

There are some departments in the museum: of Ancient Egypt, of Greek and Roman Antiquities, of the Middle East, of Prints and Drawings, of Asia, of Coins and Medals, of Prehistory and Europe, of Conservation, Documentation and Science.

The Natural History Museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology.

The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons, and ornate architecture — sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature — both exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast which dominates the vaulted central hall.

Many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Darwin.

Earth Galleries
Mammals Galleries

The Science Museum is designed to help people understand science both past and present.

The display show everyday machines as well as very advanced ones, from ordinary calculators to real spacecraft.

The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852. Now it has 145 galleries.

In 2000, a 11 m high, blown glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly was installed as a focal point in the rotunda at the V&A's main entrance.

The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

Madame Tussaud’s is the world's most famous wax museum. Every year, over two million visitors go there to see the lifelike wax figures of famous people.

You can see famous actors, models, sports, royals and politicians.

Famous criminals are kept in the Chamber of Horrors.

The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood tells the story of childhood from the sixteenth century to today. It has one of largest collections of toys in the world.

As well as toy, you can see children’s furniture and clothes, including a complete Victorian girl’s wardrobe. There are workshops and events based on the collections, too.

London's National Gallery, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square.

The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery, housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was the first portrait gallery in the world when it opened in 1856.

It is contains over 8,000 original portraits and photos. The gallery is “about history, not about art”. The artist’s name and quality of the picture aren’t important.

Tate Britain
Tate Britain is an art gallery situated on Millbank, and part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It was the first gallery to be established within the network, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the work of J.M.W. Turner.

Sargent Monet Painting
William Hogarth
William Turner
Sir John Everett Millais

The Tate Modern is Britain's national museum of international modern art and part of the group now known simply as Tate. Since the museum's opening on 12 May 2000, it has become a destination for Londoners and tourists.