Around Town

1. Foundling Museum
Thomas Coram, shipwright and businessman, was so horrified by the abandoned children he saw in London he spent 17 years raising funds to build the Foundling Hospital. The hospital doubled up as the country’s first public art gallery and concert hall, with paintings donated by William Hogarth and recitals by fellow governor George Frideric Handel.
Best exhibit The donated Hogarth paintings.
40 Brunswick Square, WC1 (020 7841 3600/ www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk) Russell Square tube. Adm £5, £4 concs, under-16s free.

2. V&A Theatre Collections (formerly the Theatre Museum)
The Theatre Museum, a branch of the V&A, traces the history of performing arts since the sixteenth century, with a vast collection of memorabilia. There are daily activities relating to costume and make-up that will appeal to all ages; however, the museum is currently under threat. Visit www.savelondonstheatres.org.uk to join the campaign to keep it open.
Best exhibit Over a million (count ’em) original programmes and playbills.
V&A Collections Centre, Blythe Road, W14 (020 7942 2697/www.theatremuseum.org.uk)Kensington tube. Currently closed, performance and theatre collections galleries are due to open from February 2009.
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3. Dr Johnson’s House
Although the museum takes up all four floors of the house in which Johnson wrote his dictionary, it’s the atmosphere that intrigues here – and the exhibits largely consist of old furniture, portraits of Johnson and Boswell, and the occasional case of ephemera (letters, spectacles etc). There’s also a short, hammy biographical video on the second floor. Kids can dress up from a selection of Georgian costumes on the top floor. Best exhibit A rather random brick from the Great Wall of China on the landing.
17 Gough Square, EC4 (020 7353 3745/ www.drjh.dircon.co.uk) Chancery Lane tube. Adm £4.50, concs £3.50, children £1.50.

A casualty at the MCC Museum

4. MCC Museum
For those seeking respite from World Cup fever, there can be few better refuges than the MCC Museum – as far from football as it is possible to get while still managing to incorporate 22 men, one ball and the bafflement of passing Americans. Visitable either on match days or as part of the thrice-daily Lord’s Tours, the oldest sporting museum in the world is opposite the members’ entrance to the famous pavilion. It deals with its lack of space by cramming as many exhibits into tall glass cases as is possible (old bats, newspaper clippings, score cards and a stuffed sparrow – it was killed by a shot by Jahangir Khan in 1936).

Thoroughly in keeping with the game, this is a museum that rewards the patient. Upstairs, you can see the museum’s most prized attraction – the stupidly small Ashes urn. Back on the ground floor, the Brian Johnston Memorial Theatre screens moments from great matches at Lord’s for visitors. Entrance comes as part of the Lord’s Tour, itself a thorough two-hour stroll round the historic ground, marshalled by an affable MCC member. The highlight is your chance to wander around the pavilion. The tour takes in the Long Room, committee room, bar (adorned, quite properly, with a new portrait of Shane Warne), visitors’ dressing-room and balcony. After a quick detour to check out the real tennis court, it then snakes round the ground, visiting each stand, the NatWest media centre and the famous Lord’s weather vane.
Best exhibit Inevitably, that urn.
Boundary Rd, NW8 (020 7616 8656/ www.lords.org) St John’s Wood tube. Open during Lord’s Tours (£8, concs £6, children £5) or on match days (£3, concs £1).

5. Old Operating Theatre Museum
GRIM SURGICAL IMPLEMENTS
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!
9a St Thomas St, SE1 (020 7188 2679/ www.thegarret.org.uk) London Bridge tube/rail. Adm £4.95, children £2.95.

6. Bank of England Museum
LIFT A GOLD BAR
Tacked on to the end of the Bank of England, this museum is housed in a replica Sir John Soane interior, the largest such replica in the world. It offers a good blend of modern, child-friendly attractions and dusty older corridors that the grown-ups will enjoy. The museum tells the history of the Bank and currency in the UK, and there’s lots of stuff about forgery.
Best exhibits A bar of gold you can pick up and a full set of NatWest piggy banks circa 1983.
Threadneedle St, EC2 (020 7601 5545/www.bankofengland.co.uk) Bank tube/DLR. Adm free.

7. Apsley House & Wellington Arch
This Robert Adam-designed house is crammed with artworks plundered by or presented to Wellington during his career, including some impressive candelabras and a giant neoclassical statue of Napoleon. There’s not much in the way of biographical detail but you’ll pick up plenty while trying to reach the complementary Wellington Arch via a tortuous underpass enlivened by informative mosaics. The Arch itself has viewing platforms and a permanent display about other London arches.
Best exhibit Wellington’s death mask.
149 Piccadilly, W1 (020 7222 1234/ www.english-heritage.org.uk) Hyde Park tube. Adm £5.10, concs £3.80, children £2.60.

8. Museum in Docklands
Housed in a historic warehouse, this excellent museum is devoted to the river and the docks. The Roman, Danish and Saxon history of the river is presented via exhibits and a series of videos narrated by Tony Robinson, before the museum takes on the birth of the docks and the lives of those who worked there. There’s also a section called Sailortown, recreating the sounds, smells and sights of nineteenth-century Wapping.
Best exhibit The model of Old London Bridge.
West India Quay, Canary Wharf, E14 (0870 444385/www.museumindocklands.org.uk) West India Quay DLR. Annual ticket (allowing unlimited visits) £5, concs £3, under-16s free.

9. Museum of St Bart’s Hospital
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.
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, West Smithfield, EC1 (020 7601 8152/ www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk) St Paul’s tube. Adm free.

10. Ragged School Museum
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.
46-50 Copperfield Rd, E3 (020 8980 6405/www.raggedschoolmuseum.org.uk) Mile End tube. Open Wed, Thur 10am-5pm, first Sun of month 2-5pm. Adm free.