# The best museums in London

London has more free world-class museums than any other European city. These are the ones Visit London, Time Out and visitors rate highest.

- 136 votes · 24 items
- Dec 15, 2023 · mseatsalot
- https://even.best/en/l/64/the-best-museums-in-london

## Top 15

1. **British Museum** (12 · ▲12 ▼0) — The UK's most visited museum, free, with the Rosetta Stone and Lewis Chessmen. <https://www.britishmuseum.org/>
2. **Natural History Museum** (12 · ▲12 ▼0) — Victorian cathedral of nature with dinosaurs, a blue whale skeleton and an earthquake simulator. <https://www.nhm.ac.uk/>
3. **Victoria and Albert Museum** (9 · ▲10 ▼1) — The world's leading museum of art, design and performance, with its cast courts and fashion galleries. <https://www.vam.ac.uk/>
4. **National Gallery** (9 · ▲10 ▼1) — Over 2,300 paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, free entry on Trafalgar Square. <https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/>
5. **Wallace Collection** (7 · ▲7 ▼0) — Free collection in Hertford House with Fragonard's The Swing and Frans Hals's Laughing Cavalier. <https://www.wallacecollection.org/>
6. **Tate Modern** (6 · ▲7 ▼1) — International modern and contemporary art in the former Bankside Power Station. <https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern>
7. **National Portrait Gallery** (5 · ▲6 ▼1) — Portraits of famous Britons from the Tudors to today, reopened in 2023 after renovation. <https://www.npg.org.uk/>
8. **Churchill War Rooms** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — The underground bunker from which Churchill directed the Second World War. <https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/churchill-war-rooms>
9. **The Courtauld Gallery** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Impressionist masterpieces in Somerset House, including Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. <https://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/>
10. **Wellcome Collection** (4 · ▲6 ▼2) — Free museum and library on Euston Road exploring health, medicine and the human experience.
11. **Science Museum** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — Stephenson's Rocket, the Apollo 10 command module and the Wonderlab interactive gallery. <https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/>
12. **Imperial War Museum London** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — Free museum of modern conflict, with Holocaust galleries and WWI and WWII exhibits. <https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london>
13. **Tate Britain** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — British art from 1500 to today, including the world's largest Turner collection. <https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain>
14. **Design Museum** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Contemporary design and architecture in the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. <https://designmuseum.org/>
15. **Museum of the Home** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Museum in Hoxton's 18th-century almshouses showing how London homes have changed over 400 years.
16. **National Maritime Museum** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — Greenwich museum of Britain's seafaring history, part of Royal Museums Greenwich. <https://www.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum>
17. **Royal Academy of Arts** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Burlington House gallery in Piccadilly, home of the annual Summer Exhibition since 1769.
18. **Sir John Soane's Museum** (1 · ▲3 ▼2) — The architect's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, kept as he left it in 1837, with Hogarth's Rake's Progress. <https://www.soane.org/>
19. **Museum of London Docklands** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — The history of the Thames and its docks in a Georgian sugar warehouse at West India Quay. <https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/>
20. **The Postal Museum** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Clerkenwell museum on the history of the post, with a ride on the old Mail Rail underground railway.
21. **Hunterian Museum** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Anatomy and surgery collection of the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields, reopened in 2023.
22. **Horniman Museum and Gardens** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Forest Hill museum with natural history, musical instruments, an aquarium and free gardens with views over London.
23. **London Transport Museum** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — Museum in Covent Garden with historic buses, trams and Underground trains.
24. **Dulwich Picture Gallery** (-1 · ▲1 ▼2) — England's first purpose-built public art gallery (1817), designed by Sir John Soane.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.