On the collage: Natural History Museum London
Perhaps the most famous museum London - Natural History Museum - will not leave indifferent neither children nor adults. It will take at least 5-6 hours to inspect all the expositions. You will make an impromptu journey to the "core of the earth", feel the power of earthquakes, see an amazing collection of minerals and learn a lot about space and the planets of the solar system. Many of the exhibits can be touched.
Children will definitely enjoy the interactive part of the museum. The Natural History Museum has a scale that allows you to find out how many times you are lighter than a whale or an elephant. Young visitors to the museum will certainly be interested in mixing sand and water using a special rotating mechanism and watching how they separate again, touch stones polished by water, find out the temperature on various planets of the solar system by just pressing a button, or compare the gravity of other planets with ours and make many other amazing things.
Dinosaurs traditionally cause the greatest delight in kids. Huge skeletons and moving models of ancient giants occupy several rooms in the museum. No less interesting is the collection of modern representatives of the fauna. Personally, these stuffed animals, to be honest, scare me a little, but the children are happy to look at both birds and mammals. And recently a huge blue whale appeared in the museum.
The Natural History Museum is located next to Gloucester Road and South Kensington tube stations at Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD. It is open daily from 10:00 to 17:50 except Christmas and the following day. Entrance to the museum is free, but some temporary exhibitions may be chargeable. For example, a paid exhibition of tropical butterflies has been operating on the territory of the museum for several years. But I wouldn't put it on my must see list.
Since the Natural History Museum is one of the most popular with residents and visitors of London, be prepared to see a queue at the entrance. Weekend mornings can take up to an hour or more. But if you come on a weekday afternoon, then there is a chance to get into the museum without a queue.
The museum has several cafes and a shop with expensive but interesting souvenirs.
On the collage: London Science Museum
Very close to the Natural History Museum is the stunning Science museum - a museum of science, from which children, especially boys, will be a difficult task to get out of. In this museum, you can learn about the history of science, look at various engines, vintage aircraft and cars, and even sit in the cockpit of a modern Boeing. The Science Museum has a huge number of interactive exhibits. Here you can try to simulate a perpetual motion machine, estimate your life expectancy, learn a lot about environmental problems.
The Science Museum hosts fascinating temporary exhibitions. For example, this year we managed to visit an exhibition dedicated to the history of space exploration, as well as an exhibition of robots, which, by the way, will last until September 3rd. So what else can you do!
The museum is located next to Gloucester Road and South Kensington tube stations at Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD. Entrance to the museum is free, but individual exhibitions may be subject to a fee. Waiting in line for entry on weekends can take up to 15 minutes, but most of the time admission to the museum is free.
3. Aquarium (Sea Life London Aquarium)
In the photo: Aquarium in London
Sea Life London Aquarium - The London Aquarium, or Oceanarium, is located next to the famous Ferris wheel and the London Underground - another interesting place to visit with children. Of course, this is not exactly a museum, but, of course, Sea Life Aquarium deserves a place in this top. Aquariums located on three floors are inhabited by various marine life. Here you can see huge sharks, and inhabitants of coral reefs, and jellyfish, and rays, and thousands of other amazing creatures. It will be interesting for both adults and children of all ages. Even six-month-old babies are fascinated by bright and beautiful fish, to say nothing of older children.
Since the Aquarium is very popular, it is worth booking the time of the visit and tickets there in advance, so as not to stand in line at the entrance.
A ticket for adults will cost £20.40, for children from 3 years old at £16.30, but it will be cheaper to buy a combined ticket for two or three attractions in London at once. For example, visiting the Aquarium, Madame Tussauds and the London Eye will cost £51, which will save you about £35.
London Transport museum is located in famous area London Covent Garden. It is interesting, first of all, because the journey through the halls of the museum will be an exciting excursion into the history of urban transport. If you want to look at the first double-decker buses, be a subway driver or visit old train cars, then you are here. Children will especially like this museum, since almost all the exhibits here are real buses, trains, cars, and in many of them you can sit, press buttons, turn the steering wheel and do many other interesting things.
Compared to other museums in our top list, the Transport Museum is relatively small. It will take about two hours to walk through it.
The museum is located next to Covent Garden tube station at Covent Garden Piazza, London, WC2E 7BB. A visit can be combined with a stroll through Covent Garden, where there are many theaters and the famous Covent Garden Market. To be honest, on our last visit, I didn’t go to the museum, but just walked and admired the stunning architecture of one of the most beautiful areas of London, looked at street performers and wandered around the sweet shops, of which there are a great many, while my husband and son had fun in the museum.
Entrance to the Museum of Transport for children under 18 is free, for adults it will cost £17.50, but for this money you get the right to visit any museum expositions for the whole year.
The museum is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00, on Fridays from 11:00 to 18:00.
5. Museum of Childhood (V&A Museum of Childhood)
On the collage: London Transport Museum
V&A Museum of Childhood is a museum of childhood, a branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This the whole world toys, telling their story from the 16th century to the present day. This museum has every toy imaginable. Dolls and dollhouses, Stuffed Toys, Board games different times and peoples, children's furniture, puppet theaters, optical and mechanical toys and, of course, constructors. But what is the joy of looking at toys if you can’t play with them? Of course, many exhibits of the Museum of Childhood are really not to be touched. But you can also play here - there is even a sandbox in the museum, and the number of interactive exhibits available for games is truly huge.
The museum is not located in the center of London, but it is not so difficult to find it. The nearest tube station is Bethnal Green, Cambridge Heath Road London E2 9PA. The museum is open daily, except December 24-26, from 10:00 to 17:45. The entrance is free.
Of course, this list of museums is far from complete. London has a wax museum, a magnificent Victoria and Albert Museum, a museum of amazing things and a million other interesting places to visit. Even having lived in this wonderful city for several years, we have not visited half of the places that I would like to see. But if you have a trip to London with children, then these five places, as it seems to me, will be of most interest to the whole family.
It is huge as well as the collection of exhibits, only a part of which is available for viewing at any time. Those who come here for the first time most often head to the mummies, the Roszet stone, chess pieces and the burial boat of Sutton Hoo.
The museum impresses with its scale and variety of exhibits. Everyone who comes here will be able to plunge into the world of history and learn something incredible for themselves, see with their own eyes the preserved heritage of their ancestors. Also, the museum is equipped reading room, which will allow you to study the issues of interest in more detail, and besides this, a wonderful cafe where you can refresh yourself for further travel through different eras.
2. National Gallery (National Gallery)
In Britain for connoisseurs of fine art, located in the heart of London and is one of business cards England. It was founded in 1824 and had only 36 paintings in its collection, and now there are more than 2000. Masterpieces from all European "schools" of painting are collected here, and temporary exhibitions are often held here, brought from all over the world.
This is a great opportunity to see with your own eyes all those paintings that you previously saw only in photographs or on the Internet. Of course, the gallery is equipped with all the necessary facilities for exploring the museum, which will not leave you confused about where to go and what to see first.
3. Natural History Museum (Museum natural science)
The most memorable museum for tourists from an aesthetic point of view. It impresses not only with its exhibits, but also incredible beauty rooms, halls, where the ancient is combined with the modern. The museum is very interesting for children, as it captures their imagination entirely. Here you can see in full size the skeleton of a dinosaur, 26 meters long or a 30-meter whale, as well as a collection of meteorites and another 70 million different exhibits.
This museum - main character in many films, and for good reason. It will really make an indelible impression and will not leave anyone indifferent.
4. Tate Modern (Tate Modern)
The London Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, which is part of the Tate Group and exhibits the National Collection British art from 1500 to today. Now, here is a collection of works of world art created since 1900. In December 2012, the gallery launched a £5 million program to bring up to 80,000 people under the age of 25 into the art world over 4 years. The museum's collection is constantly replenished by funding from sponsors who purchase exhibits from abroad.
This allows the gallery to constantly replenish and attract more and more new visitors and connoisseurs.
The works of art presented here evoke conflicting feelings for many, and this is their plus: you can always think, search, look from a different angle, and even in the most seemingly absurd or incomprehensible specimens, find something close to yourself.
5 London Transport MuseumMuseum transport London)
It's no secret that London double-decker buses are familiar to people all over the world and, along with Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, are a symbol of London. And in order to see how London's transport has developed over time, there is. There are many real buses and cars that children and adults can walk on and explore from all sides, as well as signs, signs, posters, mechanisms that used to be used in transport, all the different metro maps that change from generation to generation. You can feel like an old cab driver or drive through interactive subway tunnels as a train driver. The museum is also equipped with a playroom for children from 0 to 7 years old.
Museums that would cause my admiration and the desire to recommend them to everyone-everyone-everyone, I happened to visit quite a lot. and amazed me with their richest collections cultural heritage different peoples, in Tallinn, was remembered for its unique exhibits: a functioning submarine and an icebreaker from the early 20th century that can be explored - what could be cooler? However, the museum where I wandered until closing and this was not enough for me, so far I have met only one - this is the Museum of London.
Some tourists are skeptical about him: the volume of his collection is not so large, there are no funny or famous exhibits here, and in the ratings best museums London, unlike Tate Modern or Madame Tussauds, does not appear. But if you really want to know the real England, understand island thinking and see how one of the oldest cities in the world lived from the moment the first people appeared here to the present, you should definitely look here.
What distinguishes the Museum of London from other museums
It always seemed to me that the most important thing in a museum is not just to see an exhibit, but to understand what role it played in the lives of people of a certain culture and era, what is the story behind it, and how much it can tell us. When we see ancient Greek vases, antique pocket watches or leather shoes worn in the 3rd century AD, how much do we learn about the history of the development of society as a whole? These things tell us only about certain aspects of life at different times. However, when these same objects are immersed in the context of the era, we seem to be transported into the past and history comes to life. For example, looking into the shoemaker's workshop of the 3rd century, we discover how developed his craft was already at that time and how primitive his tools were, how painstakingly he worked on each pair, and how much more difficult and longer it was to make any shoes or boots. It is amazing how much the perception of the same objects changes when they are in the right environment.
The Museum of London does a great job of doing this: although some of its corners are overly theatrical, they give us a real idea of \u200b\u200bhow Londoners lived for more than 20 centuries: what they thought, how they ate, what they did, where they went and how they dressed, how they were treated and how they solved simple everyday problems.
Fashion, technology, culture, applied arts and crafts, urban planning and architecture - everything here comes to life to tell us the story of such a great and such different city. For me, this liveliness and clarity was an amazing discovery. Where else can you find typical Roman houses and workshops under one roof, a 19th-century Wishing Garden, an 1880s shopping street, prison cell and a 17th century carriage? The Museum of London is one of the best examples of what a museum should be: exhibits, light, audio, films, projections, interactive games and even smells - everything here allows you to feel the atmosphere different eras and understand the true Englishman!
Where is the Museum of London
The Museum of London (indicated by number 1 on the map) is located not in the most touristic, but quite fashionable among Londoners area of the Barbican. In addition to the museum itself, there is a large Cultural Center Barbican (number 2), where the gallery and theater of the same name are located, as well as numerous art cafes and coffee houses overlooking pretty artificial reservoirs.
The choice of such a place for a museum about the history of the city is not accidental - the fact is that most of the old city wall, London Wall, which was erected around Londonium during the Roman rule of the city, is located here. So this is one of the most ancient areas of the city, although many tourists do not know about it. In good weather, be sure to explore not only the museum, but also the neighboring streets, especially since such a tourist attraction as St. Paul's Cathedral (number 3 on the map) can be reached on foot in just 10 minutes. 
If you are heading to the museum from other parts of the city, you can use public transport - metro or bus:
- The closest metro stations to the museum are Barbican, St. Paul and Moorgate, their positions are indicated on the map by numbers 4–6, respectively.
- The nearest bus stop to the museum is called Museum of London, number 7, it is located on Aldergate Street and buses 4 and 56 pass here, there is another bus stop on London Wall street, number 8, you can get here by bus 100. Bus routes 8, 25, 172, 242 and 521 also pass within walking distance on the surrounding streets, you can see the location of the stops on the official website of the London transport network.
If you suddenly decide to get here by car, there are two parking lots in the area - NCP on Aldergate Street, parking up to 6 hours will cost you 14 EUR (12 pounds). More information about the parking situation and prices can be found on the official website, and London Wall parking, prices can be viewed here.
If you take a taxi or use a navigator, the exact address of the museum is Museum of London, 150 London Wall, EC2Y 5HN. And keep in mind, to enter the museum, you need to climb the footbridge over the intersection, access to it is from Aldersgate Street; London Wall and the center of St Martin "s-le-Grand. Just follow the signs, and soon you will find yourself on a site with a sculpture of a horse between two disks - the work of a modern British artist Christopher Le Brun. The composition, in my opinion, is strange, but it will fit perfectly as an indicative sign.
Museum expositions
The London Meuseum, like many others, is built on a chronological basis, but if a certain era in the history of the city does not interest you, you can almost always bypass this part of the exposition, moving in accordance with the signs.
If you are afraid of getting lost, then at the information desk at the entrance to the museum you can buy for 1 pound detailed plan exhibitions, given that the museum is free, such a small donation for its development is a simple sign of courtesy. An interactive map and floor plans can be studied in advance on the museum's official website.
prehistoric times
London before London is the name of the first part of the exposition, which is more like an archaeological museum. Walking among the exhibits presented in this part of the museum, you can find out how the climate, flora and fauna on the territory have changed. modern UK over the millennia, to see in which areas of England the first tribes lived and what the tools of primitive man looked like. I will warn you right away, if you, like myself, are not a big fan of archeology, these halls may seem boring to you, so feel free to pass by.
And if you still look here for the sake of formality, you will find rows of bones and stones sharpened in various ways, which a person gradually learns to connect in order to use it more efficiently. When I walk along these shop windows, only thoughts flash through my mind about how rapidly humanity is progressing: it once took hundreds of years for our ancestors to learn how to sharpen stone more efficiently, and the path from the first stone tool to a full-fledged hoe took almost a thousand years, and people have been going to the creation of knives and swords for one and a half thousand years, while today our life, household items and technologies change dramatically every decade, and in some areas even every two or three years!
Wandering among the skeletons of prehistoric animals and primitive tools, you will get to the totems and sacrifices that the ancient English tribes left at the bottom of the Thames for the gods who lived in the river. The exposition ends with the appearance of the first coins, metal household items like pins and keys, as well as glass jewelry. We are on the verge of one of the greatest periods in the history of London.
Roman city of Londonium
It is from these halls that the amazingly fabulous museum of London begins for me - the one where history really becomes visual, revived, alluring. At the entrance we are greeted by massive ancient slabs and several preserved ancient sculptures, and from the windows we can see part of the ancient city wall that once surrounded the northernmost city of the great Roman Empire. To understand what the city looked like at the dawn of our era, let's turn to the models: the craftsmen reproduced the port in detail for us with many small and elegant boats. It is hard to believe that it was on such ships that merchants once conquered the oceans and went on long risky journeys - today's cargo barges are devoid of any romance.
Another model offers a look at the central square of the city: low, but long white houses with red roofs, with their simplicity and conciseness, resemble oriental architecture. In addition to the palace in the center of the city, there was a spacious market square, where on the days of the festivities the whole city gathered to watch the gladiator fights. Here, in the next window? you can see what was on the shelves of local merchants: dishes (those elegant antique jugs and vases), jewelry - metal rings, brooches, pendants and earrings, as well as dice and small figurines of animals - decor items.
From a simple shop window we move deep into the Roman city. Passing by the shoemaker's and the butcher's shops, we seem to zoom in on the map: we just looked at the whole block on the model, and now we are walking along it. Measuring scales with imposing hooks that can easily pass for weapons, simple hand-sewn leather shoes with metal studs stuffed on the soles so that they do not slip - a lot of seemingly random objects recreate the atmosphere of the past and it begins to seem to me that I already see this masters at work, and behind him an apprentice boy who is just beginning to learn the craft.
From the street we get into the houses. The poor man's dwelling turns out to be quite tiny: a bed, a locker, here is a table - and dishes, and a playing board with an unfinished game of a game similar to backgammon, and some papers and documents. In the corner you can see a toilet and a washbasin, the whole dwelling is no larger than our modern bathroom.
Further we find ourselves in the house of a wealthy citizen. The first thing that catches your eye is the mosaic pattern on the floor and the presence of upholstered furniture in the house: a sofa and armchairs upholstered in soft fabric, coffee tables with vases and jugs, walls painted with birds and flowers. Women's trinkets are located in the showcase in the corner - she (the showcase itself) imitates the dressing table of a rich lady who has wide choose hairpins and pins, beads and rings. We also see here the hearth on which the food is cooked - it is much cleaner than one might expect.
A typical cuisine is presented in the showcase, and you can also listen to recipes of typical dishes of the 1st-3rd century on headphones. It is sad to realize that this advanced civilization was destroyed: the barbarians left no stone unturned in Londinium, so in the following rooms we seem to move into the past.
Medieval London
The dwelling of a Londoner at the beginning of the 5th century turns out to be much more modest and unreliable than the wonderful stone houses of the times of Roman rule. The Celtic house is more like a primitive forest hut: wooden walls, a roof covered with brushwood, a fire-hearth with a pot in the center and hard bench-beds along the walls.
Instead of elegant vases in showcases - figurines-totems, pagan beliefs still play a big role in the life of the townspeople, faith in omens is especially strong. Most of all, I remember numerous vases and vessels with faces - sometimes laughing, sometimes putting on or taking off a mask. It was a typical decorative motif in English applied art those years, but I found it incredibly modern and funny.
However, the Christian religion is also gaining popularity among Londoners - it is no coincidence that in these halls we find a large number of religious objects: from jewelry depicting gods and christian symbols to books with sacred texts. The model of St. Paul's Cathedral, built in the Middle Ages, will pleasantly surprise you (especially if you have just examined a modern building). It turns out that once instead of a round dome, the cathedral was decorated with a sharp spire and the building was much more gloomy, combining the bright features of Romanesque and gothic styles.
Be sure to play the interactive learning game in this part of the exhibition, which allows you to create a character and live a typical life. common man that time. Personally, during the game, I learned a lot of interesting things: for example, it turned out that a girl could not even dream of studying, finding a job was by no means easy, and the most important decision was how to get married successfully. Funny comments from the characters allow you to learn more about the customs and views of the people of that time.
We pass from religious life to secular life: in the following rooms there is a small reconstruction of a typical Londoner's living room of the 15th-16th centuries: a children's wooden horse, wooden furniture, paintings on the walls, only the most necessary things on the table. It seems that people, even quite rich ones, strive for a life of modest, no frills, their house is furnished simply but functionally.
But places for public entertainment differ in scope and seem to be more wasteful. We can consider in detail the model of the cylindrical Globe Theatre. It's funny to see that at one time the seats in the stalls were for the poor audience, as they were located in the open air, in contrast to the boxes and balconies, which were located under the roof as well as the stage. How things have changed in the last 5 centuries!
The last part of this exposition is devoted to the fight against one of the main problems of those years - diseases. In the 16th century, a black disease came to London - the plague - and superstitious, unenlightened citizens tried to escape from danger in truly outlandish ways. The stand with odorous mixtures became especially curious for me: you can not only read, but also smell what scared away the disease - there is lavender, and cloves, and excrement. Such familiarity with medieval culture turns out to be very clear.
However, only the inhabitants of the city recovered from one misfortune, another misfortune came to the city - the famous London fire of 1666. Be sure to take a look at the mini-cinema, where a small documentary about the fire is on repeat, and on the diorama of the city, as the story progresses, the areas covered by the flames are highlighted. It is hard to imagine how people survived this horror: because of strong wind, changing direction, the fire could not be extinguished for five days, the red-hot stones in the cathedral building simply exploded from the heat, thousands of houses were destroyed to the ground. This fire has become another turning point in the history of the city, and, like the arrival of the Viking barbarians, again completely changed the face of the city.
City expansion
The city, built on the ashes, is growing at an incredible speed: businessmen and entrepreneurs from all over the country flock here, as well as craftsmen and traders from other countries seeking good luck, so that soon England becomes the workshop of the world, and London - the main trading and financial center of Europe. The life of the townspeople noticeably changes, etiquette becomes more complex, more attention begins to be paid to such trifles as the right choice of the style of a dress, a porcelain service or a doll for a child. In these halls you can see to what extremes the life of the then entrepreneur could lead. In one part of the exposition, we can look into the cell of the debtor's prison, where behind a massive iron door in a small room with bare wooden walls, unfortunate entrepreneurs and gamblers wrote inscriptions-edifications to future prisoners. And in the other part of the hall, the Pleasure Garden awaits us - an interactive exposition that reproduces a cozy garden for a select society that discusses the latest political news and fashion over a cup of tea.
These halls will be especially interesting for fashion lovers - the showcases show many styles of dresses and men's suits of that time, in the illuminated showcases under your feet you can see the shoes of those years, and in the showcases - fans, gloves, handbags and other accessories.
Victorian Walk is one of best parts museum - escorts us from one era to another, reproducing the shopping district of the 19th century, where there is a haberdasher's shop, and a confectionery, and a toy store, and a lawyer's office, and a hairdresser. Walking along the shop windows and looking into small "institutions", we can make sure that in England of those years absolutely everything was produced and sold. It seems that only here you can wander for an hour, but this is only a small part of this amazing museum. Once on this street, at some point I forgot that I was in a museum - everything around looked more like a very realistic scenery for filming a movie. And the following halls are even more cinematic!
capital of the world
From the 19th century, we are transported to the bustling 1900s, and London turns out to be a world metropolis where cultures merge, sound different languages, and the classic symbols of the city are red phone booth and London cabs are lost against the background of common, global symbols of the time.
Here we see the Jazz Age with such bright ladies' outfits embroidered with feathers and glass beads, and the birth of protest movements, leaflets and brochures of the first suffragettes, and symbols of the consumer society with its ostentatious luxury - just look at the brightly illuminated elevator doors from the Selfridges multi-brand store.
Time seems to stretch here: if earlier one hall reflected several centuries, then several decades can hardly fit here, and it seems that each trend is trying to outshout the others. So, the sounds of jazz are still heard, and we are already passing by the portraits of the famous founders of the rock movement. The creators of the museum deliberately emphasize how complex and filled with meanings modern world how the face of the city is changing. Here it is already clearly felt modern London is a city where it is impossible to get bored, because there is a place and entertainment for every taste. “If you are tired of London, you are tired of life,” the poet Samuel Johnson once said, and his words became a kind of motto for the city.
Information for visitors
Entrance to the Museum of London, like many other key museums in the city, is completely free, so it's worth a look here, even if you have very little time: choose the most interesting period for you and study it in detail, not being too lazy to look and documentaries and play interactive games. Find out more about tours and special programs- lectures, master classes, festivals - on the official website of the museum.
The museum is open every day from 10:00 to 18:00, but the halls close at 17:40, visitors are offered to spend the last 20 minutes in a gift shop.
Here you can buy various souvenirs with prints based on the key works of the exhibition - I especially liked the decorative illustration dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the fire of London, which the city celebrated in 2016. Chocolate, cookies, tea, notebooks, hot pads, kitchen towels, pocket mirrors - almost everything is printed! However, prices bite - the cheapest options will cost 6-7 EUR (5-6 pounds). In addition, the Museum of London pleases with an excellent selection of books about the history of the city, thematic guides and photo albums. If you want to add a book about this city to your library, be sure to check out the books here: you can find limited editions made especially for the museum, but the prices will be standard, about 12-18 EUR (10-15 pounds) per book. The cheapest thing you can buy here, as elsewhere, is postcards - 0.9 EUR (0.75 pounds) for postage and 2.35 EUR (2 pounds) for a greeting (opening) card with an envelope.
***
Making history interesting and visual is not an easy task, and I have yet to see an example of a museum that does it better than the Museum of London. Each era is unique, and here you really understand well the peculiarities of each period in the life of the city, and through it, the whole country.
The Museum of London looks at how the city lived and developed from the point of view of the citizens: what occupied their thoughts, how they dressed, where they went, what they did. And such knowledge is much closer and more interesting to me than dry statistical facts from history books. The past can come alive, and I invite you to go to a place where two millennia of the life of a magnificent city have been reproduced.
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Tourists usually first of all rush to see those sights that are on everyone's lips.
Tower, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, British Museum…
These attractions are indeed very important, but there are other objects in the British capital, although not very popular, but very interesting.
If you visit these five, little-known to a wide audience, you will have no less impressions than those places where tourists flock in droves.
City Museum of London
Walking through the streets, squares and parks of a huge metropolis, which is modern London, it is hard to imagine that once on the banks of the Thames there was a provincial, unremarkable village. But it was so, and if you visit the London City Museum, the exposition will tell the whole history of the capital of the United Kingdom, from prehistoric times.
The whole history of London gradually passes before the eyes of visitors passing from hall to hall: first, numerous objects dug up by archaeologists, then samples of medieval weapons and clothing, then costumes from the time of Queen Elizabeth, modern photographs.
In addition to authentic things in the halls, there are many models that reproduce the city as it was in different times- under the Romans, after the conquest of Britain by the Normans, during the Great English Revolution. Particularly impressive are the objects found on the ashes of the Great Fire of 1666, when the entire city center burned down - metal objects melted like butter in the fire. It is also interesting to look at the original carriage, which is used for solemn ceremonies.
Halls relating to the present, tell about the prospects for the development of London. Visitors do not have to be bored: interactive displays are placed everywhere, and in general the entire exposition is organized in such a way that people would be interested.
It remains to add that you don’t have to pay for the entrance to the City Museum of London, and it’s not difficult to get to it: you can get off at the Barbican station and walk a few blocks, or set aside time after visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral - it’s no more than five minutes to walk from it to the museum .
Museum of Garden Art
As you know, Britain is famous for its gardens and parks, and gardening traditions go far back in time. When asked how to achieve the same even and beautiful lawns, the British answer, they say, it is necessary to water and mow, then water again and mow again, and so for three hundred years ...
Museum garden art, located in the London district of Lambeth, tells about the hard work of English gardeners. The exposition of the museum covers the whole range of problems related to gardening. You can, for example, trace how tools for processing plants changed as technology developed, what forms of flower beds gardeners preferred at different times, etc.
Interestingly, the museum, created in 1977, occupies the building former church Mary, which at one time was intended for demolition. But since the most prominent English gardener John Tradescant, who died in 1638, was buried in it, in order to preserve his grave, enthusiasts collected donations and created a museum with this money. In honor of Tradescant, the area adjacent to the building is given the appearance that a small English garden would have had in the 17th century.
Entrance to the museum costs 7.50 pounds, but if there are no additional exhibitions on the day of the visit, then the price is reduced to 5 pounds.
Police Museum
The image of a London policeman-bobby with a characteristic helmet on his head is known all over the world. And in order to get a closer look at the history of the appearance of the London police and the methods of its work, you need to look into the police museum, which occupies the premises of the police headquarters.
Because of this neighborhood, the museum is not open every day, it works on a tricky schedule, and it is better to inquire about the nearest opening time in advance. For example, the exposition can be open only on Friday in one week, on Saturday and Sunday in another, and on Thursday and Friday in the third. But if you manage to visit the museum, then an unforgettable experience will be provided - touching the history of the search for Jack the Ripper is worth a lot.
Museum of Science and Technology
Although the Museum of Science and Technology does not directly affect the history of London, it is necessary to visit it for the sake of the unique exhibits that are stored in the halls. And they are not just stored - many items can be touched, for example, turn the handle of the apparatus, which was used by operators during the time of the Lumiere brothers.
The museum, founded in 1857, keeps within its walls more than 300,000 objects, from the present steam engine James White, built in late XVIII century, to modern spacecraft.
Women will certainly be delighted with the section on the history of the kitchen - looking at the devices used by housewives of the 19th century, you immediately understand how modern technology makes household work easier.
Men will be more interested in watching videos of active volcanoes and assessing the size of combat aircraft hovering under the ceiling.
Entrance to the museum is free, but the fee is charged only for visiting additional exhibitions and a three-dimensional cinema.
Museum of Natural History
Museum of Natural History occupies an old building Victorian era which is an attraction in itself. It looks very interesting, but inside is much more interesting, as visitors are waiting for the secrets of biology and evolution.
The halls are divided thematically, some trace the origin of fish, others are completely occupied by birds, and the third tells about the changes in the animal world. The pride of the museum is a truly gigantic carcass of a blue whale tens of meters long. In comparison, the skeletons of sharks and narwhals seem tiny and not at all impressive.
Another interesting corner of the museum is an exhibition of dinosaur figures. The monsters that owned our planet millions of years ago are carefully reproduced, and moreover, they are still moving, growling, scaring people with their huge teeth.
Entrance to the museum is free, but a fee is still charged for visiting temporary exhibitions - do not be surprised if ministers do not let you into some halls for no reason.
A trip to London does not have to be reduced to visiting the most famous sights, because small museums, such as the Museum of Garden Art or the Police Museum, can add additional, very important touches to the picture of memories.
