Opening times: Saturday TO Thursday 10.00am – 5.00pm; Friday 10.00am – 8.30pm. Closed December 24 -26 December.
Entry: No charge to permanent collection; separate fee for temporary exhibitions.
Access: Local parking available at a charge. Alternatively, the nearest undergrounds are Tottenham Court Road (5 minute walk approx.), Holborn (7 mins.), and Russell Square (7 mins.).
The British Museum is more than just a world-class museum. It is the standard bearer for world-class museums, and it is arguably yet to be bettered. It welcomes 6.5 million visitors per year and is the U. K.’s most visited attraction.
It is the world’s oldest national museum, founded in 1753 when Sir Hans Sloane left his collection to the nation, and opened to the public six years later, making the British Museum older than the United States. Sloane’s collection of more than 80,000 ‘natural and artificial rarities’ and 40,000 books and manuscripts was so vast it was eventually split to kickstart both the Natural History Museum and the British Library. All three institutions continued to grow their collections and do so still today. Case in point, the British Museum now has at least 8 million objects in its collection, of which roughly only one percent are on display at any one time.
Let’s have a look at just a handful (or two) of its many treasures.
Part of the controversial Elgin Marbles. These sculptures originally adorned the Parthenon in Athens and were shipped to Britain in the early 19th century on the orders of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. At the time Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire and Elgin claimed he had the permission of Ottoman officials, but the legality of the sculptures’ removal has been questioned ever since.Another portion of the Elgin Marbles. The collection is so large they have their own dedicated exhibition hall. Greece requested the return of the statuary shortly after gaining independence in 1830, and subsequent Greek governments have been doing so ever since. Britain’s argument for keeping them, as far as I can tell, is “if we give the Elgin Marbles back other countries might want their stuff back too”, a view expressed as recently as 2023 by Britain’s then Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan. A splendid example of a lamassu, a protective Assyrian deity that comprises the body of a winged bull (or lion) and the head of a human male. This one was originally located in the ancient Assyrian capital Dur-Sharrukin, present day Khorsabad in northern Iraq. Assyria dominated the Middle East between 900 – 600 BCE and is considered the world’s first empire.This here is a Babylonian Map of the World (c. 700 – 500 BCE) and it’s here because it’s not every day you see one of those! Apparently it refers to the Flood Story as one of the mountains featured – and no, I can’t make head nor tail of it – is Urartu, where the Babylonian Ark landed after the Flood. In the Bible, and on modern day maps, the mountain is named Ararat.The Rosetta Stone is a slab, or stele, of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BCE on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The three texts used are Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Ancient Egyptian Demotics, and Ancient Greek. Because all three text say more or less the same thing, the Rosetta Stone was the key to deciphering Ancient Egyptian scripts. According to the museum’s website, this is its most popular exhibit.“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” The colossal bust of Ramesses II (approx. 1279 to 1213 BCE), which originally stood at the pharaoh’s memorial temple on the West Bank at Thebes (modern day Luxor). It was originally part of a colossal, seated statue of Ramesses, and was one of a pair. The head of its twin still lies on site at Luxor. This and the Luxor ruins are said to be the inspiration for Percy Bysshe Shelley’s great poem Ozymandias, although the poet is unlikely to have seen this bust. He left England in March 1818 and the statue went on display the following year.Speaking of ‘King of Kings’… This mosaic was recovered from a Roman villa at Hinton St. Mary in Dorset. The Greek letters X (chi) and P (rho) behind the head suggest that this is a representation of Jesus. That being the case, this is probably the earliest known mosaic depiction of Christ.Another mosaic, this time an exquisite double-headed serpent, possibly worn as part of a headdress during Aztec rituals. The museum speculates that this may have been given to Cortes by the Emperor Mocetuzohma II upon the former’s arrival in Mexico in 1519.One of England’s most famous faces. The Sutton Hoo helmet was discovered during the 1939 excavation that unearthed the Sutton Hoo ship. It is associated with the Anglo-Saxon King Rædwald of East Anglia, although this is not conclusive, and is believed to have been buried c. 620 – 625 CE. When found the helmet had shattered into fragments, many of them tiny, and it had to be reassembled. The helmet’s mouth, nose and eyebrows and centre of the forehead form the image of a flying creature, possibly a dragon. This is just one of four complete helmets to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. A reimagined depiction of the Sutton Hoo excavation provided the basis of the 2021 Netflix film The Dig, starring Ralph Feinnes and Carey Mulligan, and is well worth checking out.Another stunning find from the Sutton Hoo excavation, this buckle was made using over 400 grams of gold. A beautiful piece of early medieval craftmanship, it depicts thirteen intertwining animals (although even using the accompanying graphic I couldn’t identify them). This and the other Sutton Hoo treasures were donated by Mrs. Edith Pretty (played by Mulligan in the film), on whose land the ship-burial was discovered.The Battersea Shield (c. 350 – 50 BCE), so called because it was found in the River Thames at Battersea Bridge, is described by the museum as on of the finest examples of La Tene, or Celtic art, discovered in Britain. The shield would have been no protection on the battlefield and is therefore believed to have been for display purposes. A replica is available in the museum shop for a ‘mere’ £1,250.00.Five of the 82 Lewis Chessmen owned by the British Museum. These 12th century pieces are so named because they were found on the Isle of Lewis in 1831. The National Museum of Scotland has a further eleven Chessmen.The intricate Holy Thorn Reliquary was made for Jean, duc de Berry in Paris around 1400 to display s thorn supposedly from the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ at the Crucifixion.The Tudor Heart Pendant was found by detectorist Charlie Clarke in 2019, only six months after taking up the hobby (hopefully he was inspired by the TV show), and was later valued at £3.5m. I bet Charlie did the Gold Dance! It is ‘associated’ with Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, bearing as it does their initials and symbols representing their respective dynasties, but has not yet been directly linked to them. Perhaps it is the Tudor equivalent of a Charles and Diana mug, circa 1981.This is the Reading Room, opened in May 1857 and home of the British Library until the books were moved to the purpose-built building in St. Pancras. It served as an exhibition space between 2007 and 2013 and now houses the museum’s archive. A number of famous faces passed through its doors when it was the British Library, including authors Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, George Orwell, and Oscar Wilde, and political players such as Karl Marx, Marcus Garvey, Mahatma Gandhi, and Vladimir Lenin, who signed in under the alias Jacob Richter. The Reading Room is located in the Great Court, the largest covered square in Europe.
Visitors are free to wander the galleries at their leisure but the museum also run a series of tours, such as ‘Around the World in 90 Minutes’, which explores some of the museum’s highlights; ‘Desire, Love, Identity: An LGBTQ Tour’; and an African Heritage and History tour. Many more are available, so it is worth checking the museum’s website before visiting (Note: Some tours come with a cost of admission, some are free of charge).
The British Museum also hosts temporary exhibitions throughout the year. Just coming to an end of their run at this time of writing are Samurai (“Discover the reality behind a millennium of myth at this sweeping exhibition on the legendary warriors”; adults from £23.00) and Hawai’i: a kingdom crossing oceans (“a celebration of the artistry and history of Hawai’i”; adults £16.00). Coming up in September 2026 is The Bayeux Tapestry, making its return to the UK after 1,000 years. It runs through to July 2027, and I’m certainly going to try to see it.
Destination or Diversion?
The British Museum is a destination, no question. In fact, it is so overwhelming in its size and range of exhibits (and indeed in the number of visitors per day) that if possible I would suggest it is a destination worth visiting several times and tackling a different section each time, and then there is additional time required if taking in any of the temporary exhibitions. As with the British Library I spent well over half an hour in the shop alone, and probably could have spent (and bought!) more.
We’ll end with this curiosity, a mermaid, said to have been caught in Japan in the 18th century. It is of course, a fake, made by attaching the top half of a monkey to the lower body and tail of a fish, exactly like P. T. Barnum’s famous ‘Fiji mermaid’.
