Museum of London

Discover the history of London and its people.

The Museum of London documents the history of Londonfrom prehistoric to modern times. The museum is located close to the Barbican Centre as part of the striking Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 1970s as an innovative approach to re-development within a bomb-damaged area of the City of London.

The museum had a £20 million redevelopment which was completed in May 2010. This is its biggest investment since opening in 1976. The re-design, by London-based architects Wilkinson Eyre (link is external), tells the story of London and Londoners from the Great Fire of 1666 to the present day. The transformation includes four new galleries. The new City Gallery features large street level windows along London Wall (link is external) and provides an illuminated showcase for the Lord Mayor's State Coach, which takes to the streets each November for the Lord Mayor's Show (link is external).

The Galleries of Modern London increased the museum's exhibition space by 25 percent and enabled the display of 7,000 objects. Star exhibits include a reconstruction of Georgian (link is external) pleasure gardens (link is external), the foreboding wooden interior of the Wellclose debtors prison (link is external) cell, an art deco lift from Selfridges (link is external) department store and the puppet stars of BBC (link is external) children's TV Andy Pandy (link is external) and Bill and Ben (link is external).

The "Expanding City" gallery covers the period 1660s to 1850. "People's City" addresses 1850 to 1940s including a "Victorian (link is external) Walk" with recreated shops and public buildings, and sections on the West End (link is external), Suffragettes (link is external), World War I (link is external) andWorld (link is external) War II (link is external), and everyday life.

The new galleries place a renewed emphasis on contemporary London and contemporary collecting. "World City" is the gallery which tells London's story from 1950 to the present day. Fashion looms large here - from formal suits of the 1950s, through to the Mary Quant (link is external) dress of the swinging 1960s, hippy chic in the 1970s and the bondage trousers and ripped T-shirts of the punk (link is external) era. Fashion comes right up to date with a pashmina from Alexander McQueen (link is external)'s 2008 collection.

The Sackler Hall contains an elliptical LED (link is external) curtain where the work of up-and-coming young filmmakers is screened in a bi-annual Museum of London Film Commission, in association with Film London. A temporary exhibition space, "Inspiring London", features a changing programme of displays on the theme of creativity and inspiration.

Free admission.