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  • London's best unsung museums

  • Compiled by Time Out editors


  • Ragged School Museum008_crop.jpg
    Ragged School Museum

    Museum of Rugby
    You can almost smell embrocation in the air as you wander round this evocative and interactive collection of oval-ball artefacts and memorabilia. Permanent exhibits show how the sport has spread around the world from its roots in English public schools, and trophies, tickets, caps, kit and commentaries evoke great games of the past. The excellent stadium tour includes a peek in the England changing room, while would-be Jonny Wilkinsons will prickle with goosebumps as they walk down the players’ tunnel on to the turf.
    Best exhibit Get hands-on and test your strength on a scrum machine.
    Museum of Rugby, Rugby Rd, Twickenham, TW1 1DZ (0870 405 2001/www.rfu.com). Twickenham rail.

    Museum of St Bart’s Hospital
    FREE
    After a short video explaining the history of Bart’s and its founding in 1123, this museum offers a crash course in the changing face of London hospitals. Displays explain how Bart’s developed, while offering plenty of mean-looking instruments and bottles marked ‘POISON’ to gawp at. There are also two Hogarth murals to admire, plus a great book full of illustrations of injuries, ruptures, lesions and pus.
    Best exhibit The old wooden skull used to practise drilling and football skills.
    Museum of St Bart’s Hospital, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, West Smithfield, EC1 (7601 8152/ www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk) St Paul’s tube. Feature continues

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    National Army Museum
    FREE
    Predictably, weapons feature prominently in here: the 2,500 edged weapons, 200 pole arms and 1,850 firearms should keep bloodthirsty teenagers interested. But it’s the human side of the exhibits that make the National Army Museum work, including oral histories from World War I veterans, and the order that launched the Charge of the Light Brigade.
    Best exhibits Florence Nightingale’s lamp, and Lord Raglan’s Crimean telescope.
    National Army Museum, Royal Hospital Rd, SW3 (7881 2455/www.national-army-museum.ac.uk). Sloane Square tube.

    New London Architecture
    FREE
    A museum in the broader sense, this has regular exhibitions about the future of architecture and planning in London. Includes an incredible scale model of London in its lobby.
    New London Architecture, The Building Centre, 26 Store St, WC1E 7BT (www.newlondonarchitecture.org). Goodge St tube.

    North Woolwich Old Station Museum
    FREE
    This intact Victorian railway station is London’s only railway museum and comes complete with ticket office and historic engines.
    North Woolwich Old Station Museum , Pier Rd, North Woolwich, E16 2JJ (www.railschool.org/railway/index.htm). North Woolwich rail.

    Old Operating Theatre Museum
    This is the oldest operating theatre in Britain, complete with wooden spectator galleries, lodged up in the roof of a baroque church. St Thomas’s Hospital is long gone from this site but its hair-raising collection of pre-anaesthetic surgical instruments survives.
    Best exhibit The saws, of course!
    Old Operating Theatre Museum, 9a St Thomas St, SE1 (7188 2679/www.thegarret.org.uk). London Bridge tube/rail.

    Petrie Museum
    FREE
    There’s a scholarly air here, but don’t let that put you off. With its 80,000 exhibits, the Petrie (pronounced pee-tree) is bursting at its seams with items from the Nile valley dating back 5,000 years. Unlike Howard Carter, who excavated Tutankhamun’s tomb and was taught by Petrie, Petrie was more interested in everyday Egyptian objects, and there are pots, bowls, jewellery, combs, tiles and so on on display.
    Best exhibits Mummified head, with hair.
    Petrie Museum, University College London, Malet Place, WC1 (7679 2884/www.petrie.ucl.ac.uk). Goodge St tube.

    Ragged School Museum
    FREE
    The canalside warehouses that housed Dr Barnardo's Ragged Day School during the late Victorian period are now home to a museum of the East End which examines the experiences of the children who attended the school.
    Ragged School Museum, 46-50 Copperfield Rd, E3 (8980 6405/www.raggedschoolmuseum.org.uk). Mile End tube.

    Royal Academy of Music
    FREE
    The academy’s museum boasts hundreds of different musical instruments.
    Royal Academy of Music, Marylebone Rd, NW1 5HT (www.ram.ac.uk/facilitiesandcollections). Regent's Park tube.

    Royal Air Force Museum
    FREE
    Fancy a career as a pilot? In the interactive Aeronauts Gallery you can take a pilot aptitude test to discover whether you are, or not, the ‘right stuff’, plus there’s a simulator (extra charge) to help you identify if you’d be able to keep your lunch down. Other attractions include 80 aircraft and a multimedia account of the Battle of Britain.
    Best exhibit ‘Milestones of Flight’: some of the most important RAF aircraft along with classics from the US, Germany, Japan and France.
    Royal Air Force Museum, Grahame Park Way, NW9 (8205 2266/www.rafmuseum.org.uk). Colindale or Broadway rail.

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30 comments

  1. Posted by CorbeauNoir on 25 Jun 2009 08:45

    Edgar West - It's not about 'vapid contemporary apology', it's about exhibiting objects with a better understanding of their significance. This is obviously more the case with anthropological objects than with anything involving natural history - the Victorians did a good job of physically acquiring objects but there was little if any genuine concern about their function or contemporary significance - it really was literally a 'treasure hunt'. With the prevalence of the internet being 'culturally poor' is becoming less and less of an issue (and in fact saying so is inaccurate - virtually all of the objects collected during the era of Empire are not 'British' at all, so it's not British culture that's being impovershed) , alterations in museums nowadays are made to convey that artifacts did - and still do - hold deep cultural importance as well as being beautiful, and this normally results in a need for compromise in display methods. Objects from natives here on the Northwest Coast are a great example of this - many of the masks they're world-famous for are in fact not meant to be seen unless being used for a dance, much less displayed openly behind glass. Hence you develop communication with the cultural owners of objects and as such alter display methods to enrich the functions of objects - instead of being permanently behind glass, natives might occasionally visit a museum and use those masks in ceremonial dances, for example.
    It can get very complicated, but the short of it is that those changes you witness are genuinely meant to enrich the functions of museum collections rather than 'sterilize' them as might be interpreted. In the simplest terms, we simply know more now than they did then. In any case, there are certainly many places that continue to pay homage to British Victorian eccentricity (in many ways a museum-worthy subject of preservation in its own right), most notably the Sloane Museum.
    I don't aim to berate you or anything like that, only to educate. I've been studying this kind of stuff a lot :)

  2. Posted by sam on 26 Feb 2009 11:36

    The Wallace Collection is a great art museum that is free and near bond st tube.

  3. Posted by Cath on 29 Jan 2009 14:24

    The Huntarian and Soane's museums are pretty much opposite each other, and a 20-25 min walk from the British Museum. They make a great combination as they are both really unusual but in totally different ways! Around Lincoln's Inn are lots of historic buildings (the Inns of Court and so on) plus the fields themselves are a pleasant place to eat lunch and have a fairly upmarket cafe/restaurant.
    They make a good combination for a day out in London and are themselves very close to Covent Garden for lunch/dinner.
    They are my favourite London museums!

  4. Posted by Roger on 26 Jan 2009 08:19

    I agree with Erik. The Museum of Brands and Packaging is well worth a visit. It is a view of social history over the past 100 years or so by reference to everyday items such as food packaging, advertising styles etc. Educational and nostalgic. www.museumofbrands.com

  5. Posted by Tracy Nash on 25 Jan 2009 13:55

    Horniman Museum
    Again took my niece there last summer and it was another museum she enjoyed, it has various exhibits, it also has lovely grounds to walk thru on a good day.. Has a basement fukllof aquariums, this museum is ideal for children as well as adult minds

  6. Posted by Erik on 24 Jan 2009 11:25

    the museum of brands and packaging is really cool and should be on this list. it's near notting hill tube and showcases food packaging from the turn of the century to present day.

  7. Posted by cara on 24 Jan 2009 11:00

    has anyone been to the Horniman Museum ?
    am intrigued to go today but don't want to be dissapointed...

  8. Posted by Rita Kleppmann on 23 Jan 2009 14:58

    I visited the Tea and Coffee Museum about a year ago and was seriously disappointed - too many exhibits (i.e. cramped), appalling lighting etc. I could have made a better job of it myself. I´m so glad they are refurbishing - the newly opened Museum can only be an improvement.

  9. Posted by John on 20 Jan 2009 18:33

    Unlike some of the rather well-known, much-visited museums included in this feature, a genuinely ‘unsung’ museum is the British Optical Association Museum at the College of Optometrists, a delightful Georgian building in Craven Street. Not only are its collections of vision aids, optician’s equipment and all things eye-related of international significance but because its displays are produced entirely in-house they avoid that ‘over-designed’ look that characterises and spoils so many wealthier museums these days. You won’t find a sign on the door and you must book in advance but if you pluck up the courage you’ll not only get a personal guided tour from a genuine expert (tailored to whatever time you have available) but you’ll thoroughly enjoy seeing some wonderful things, both serious and quirky…and all just a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square. In fact, if you discount art galleries it’s the most centrally located museum in the entire capital and I bet most people don’t know it’s there!

  10. Posted by Tracy Nash on 20 Jan 2009 13:35

    V&A Museum of Childhood
    I took my 2yr old niece here last summer and she loved it, its is very accessible and not to huge that a smaller child would lose interest. I would reccommend it

  11. Posted by jess on 20 Jan 2009 10:41

    Can anyone give anymore information about the viv stanshall museum, i would love to go there and can't find any info about it?

  12. Posted by Aimee C on 18 Jan 2009 08:42

    I too have two more recommendations for those with inquisitive minds (seems like most Londoners do from these posts!). The Freud museum is a treat in Swiss Cottage/Finchley http://www.freud.org.uk/ and the Sir John Soan's museum in Holborn in well worth a visit (and it's free) http://www.soane.org/. Liking all the other recommendations - is there ever an end to the things you can do in London!

  13. Posted by kevin on 17 Jan 2009 16:07

    the petrie museum is a must if you love anything to do with egypt

  14. Posted by G on 17 Jan 2009 13:39

    The Viv Stanshall museum is fun up there in Finchley

  15. Posted by manchester city on 16 Jan 2009 19:39

    What a brilliant list for people visiting London, my son and I and a friend are coming to London for a short break in February and this is so informative thanks.

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