For a long time, the British Museum has been the most popular museum in London, which opened in 1759. The museum holds roughly 8 million items, of which around 80000 are shown at a time.

There are works from these different geographical locations/periods:

  • Asia
  • Africa
  • America
  • Ancient Greece and Rome
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Ancient Egypt

From these collections you can find, for example, the Rosetta Stone, mummies and a statue from Easter Island. In the museum, you can get free 30-40 minute Eye Opener tours daily, as well as presentations five times a week (Tuesday-Saturday) at 13:15. Along with these the museum also offers 90 minutes Around the World tours, which cost £14.

Virtual tours

British Museum has several types of online experiences available. You can visit many of the galleries as well as the world-famous Great Court with its beautiful ceiling on Google Street View. There are also separate virtual galleries for specific topics, such as Oceania and Prints and drawings galleries. You can also explore the museum collection using a timeline view, filtering items by geographical region and era.
Google Arts and Culture, which is a service provided in collaboration with over 2000 museums worldwide, has many online exhibitions and stories about British Museum collections showing many of the items.

Getting there

The nearest underground stations are Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, Russell Square and Goodge Street. All the stations mentioned earlier are roughly a 10-minute walk away.

Nearby

The British Museum is close to Oxford Street, with about a 5 minute walking distance in between.