Historical / Cultural sites in London

[bryceQ]

I love to visit museums / churches exhibitions particular pre 20th century history. I've got a day in central London next week, any ideas of where I might not have been.

I'll caveat by saying I've visited quite a lot of places!

From memory I've been:
The Temple
Westminster Abbey
St Paul's
Portrait and National Gallery
War rooms
Kensington Palace
Hampton court
Tower of London
Huntarien museum (sp?)
Postal museum
Transport
Charles Dickens
Imperial war museum
British museum

Greenwich is too far for the time I have next week.

Any hidden gems? Don't need to be big ones! Or new exhibitions?

OP have you been to Sutton House in Hackney - a Tudor house? Ages ago, before it was revamped by the NT I knew some people who lived there as sort of caretakers until the NT decided what to do with it. They used to throw amazing parties in the courtyard.

If the weather is ok, you could consider an outdoor style history trip- to a forest cemetery! Tower Hamlets cemetry park hasn't added new graves for years and they've left nature re-grow. Its actually beautiful how nature and headstones mix. You can get a list of famous burials there and they have various activities/walks etc too. There are similar cemeteries in London, but this is the only one I've been too. https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/leisureandculture/parksandopenspaces/cemeterypark.aspx
https://fothcp.org/

If heading east, someone else also suggest the childrens V&A. Its 20m from Bethnal Green tube station, free, and exciting for adults along with children. Interesting to look at 'old' toys and things we played with in our own childhood which are now museum pieces! 😬 https://www.vam.ac.uk/young?

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Also east is the Last Tuesday Society Bar which has the Viktor Wynd Museum underneath, down a spiral staircase. The museum is small, but crammed with curiosities. From memory, some evenings have half price for admission.

Another one, is the Museum of the home, which looks at houses through the ages. https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/

Mithraeum?

Have you looked into Mudlarking?

I haven't done it myself, a colleague pointed it out as DD is history mad.
You can't keep any finds but the experience itself is supposedly great.

https://thames-explorer.org.uk/guided-tours/

Another recommendation for Sutton House (featured in the Mirror and the Light!) in Hackney and for Charterhouse.

If you can get a ticket for one of the Charterhouse tours you can see much more than if you just turn up to visit the small museum (but you can also visit the chapel without a ticket). Easily combined with Bunhill Fields, the Priory of St John museum and Wesley’s house, all nearby.

If the weather is ok, you could consider an outdoor style history trip- to a forest cemetery!

There are seven of these, around what was then the outskirts of London, known as the Magnificent Seven. As OP lives to the north, Highgate would be a good bet. Waterlow Park next door is quite nice to stroll around, and has a cafe. If you walk back down the hill to Archway Tube, look out for Dick Whittington's cat by the roadside.

Another one for a day when the weather's OK - from King's X/St P, walk along the canal to the Canal Museum/Camden Market.

Seconding these, and the City churches (I think we got round almost all while living in London). Keats’ and Freud’s houses in Hampstead, Kenwood House, Highgate Cemetery.

Have you been to Tower Bridge and used the high level walkways and seen the engines that lift the bridge?

Museum of Brands. My favourite museum but haven't been since it moved.

Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum

Lift 109 - the Battersea Power Station chimney accessed by lift

You've done Westminster Abbey, but Westminster Cathedral is lovely and worth a visit. It's just further up from the abbey.

Tour of the Houses of Parliament.

Join one of the numerous guided walks - ghosts of the city, etc. They will take you to hidden nooks and crannies with interesting stories.

Dr Johnson's house in the City - a few steps from Temple Church which I see you've visited. I really loved this a lot more than Dennis Severs house

From.there, the walk up Fleet Street to Old Bailey and maybe coffee at The Delaney to read some Michael Frayn really gets me when you have a head full of London culture and history.

Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood is somewhere I haven't been for a long time but loved.

Dulwich Picture Gallery. I've in fact only been once but the exhibition was so good I cried.

If you tire of your own company I can recommend London Walks (they take about 2 hours and cost £20) https://www.walks.com/

If you can get down to Forest Hill, the Horniman Museum is an interesting little place. www.horniman.ac.uk/ . The train station is a 10 min walk away and is on the Overground (Windrush line from Highbury & Islington down to West Croydon via Docklands).

If you do find yourself near Temple, 2 Temple Place has absolutely gorgeous stained glass windows. It hosts a lot of free art exhibitions, so it is worth checking their website from time to time: https://twotempleplace.org/

Slightly out of the centre but worth the effort

Ham House
Eltham Palace
Fulham Palace
Garden Museum
Museum of the Home ( used to be the Geffrye Museum and was all the better for it, but still interesting.)

When the weather is a bit better a guided walking tour around the City is illuminating, only takes an hour or two but really opens your eyes. similarly try to visit the Vand A or the National,Gallery and join one of their free lunchtime talks, they focus on a few items, or a couple of pictures, but you learn things you would never find out about otherwise.

Another one for Dr Johnson’s House and Sir John Soanes museum.

Which part of Zone 3 are you? There’s Kenwood House in Hamspstead.

When the weather picks up, how about the Chelsea Physic Garden, or Kew Gardens?

Also, as you're near Hampstead, have you been to https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/hampstead-heath/where-to-go-at-hampstead-heath/hill-garden-and-pergola

We've been there twice and I hope to go again. Gorgeous (and free).

If you are in this area and need lunch then the cafe at the Army Museum is excellent value and very good food! The museum itself often has interesting temporary exhibitions, I went to one about the man who designed many of the war propaganda posters, and to one about the real War Horses of WW1.

Science Museum has a new exhibition looking at Versailles www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/versailles-science-and-splendour or the Wallace has one about Boulle clocks.

And, having familiarised yourself with the City of London from above, try views of the City of Westminster from Morton's Tower and peer into the grounds of Lambeth Palace while you're at it.

Not a museum or exhibition but Horizon 22 (just by Liverpool Street station) is worth a visit - you need to book a ticket but it's free and gives you amazing panoramic views of London. Best done on a sunny day if possible.

Dr Johnson's House

Sutton House (Hackney)
Leighton House and Sambourne House (Kensington)
2 Willow Road, Fenton House and Keats House (Hampstead)

This exhibition at Tate Britain looks good. The Museum of London Docklands is one of my favourite museums in London; also love the London Transport Museum. Enjoy your day to yourself, let us know where you decide to go :)

The current Hew Locke exhibition at the British Museum is excellent and will make you look at the museum inventory in an entirely different way.

I've been up most of the tall lookouts, but NOT the Shard (took the family up Horizon 22 last weekend.

The dates on which they all release tickets for the viewing platform seem entirely random.

If you aren't too bothered about looking up at Old Street and beyond it is generally easier to get into 8 Bishopsgate "The Lookout", which is much smaller and a bit lower and has a narrower view.

I quite like the roofgarden of The Post Building near Holborn tube (they have kept a few of the postal bits in the foyer). There's a nice view east and the roof of the British Museum (but will only occupy you for about 15 mins if you don't want to rest your feet.

It’s not open until March now, but Fenton House in Hampstead is also worth a visit.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/london/fenton-house-and-garden/booking-your-visit-to-fenton-house

I might have missed someone mentioning The Wallace Cillection in Marylebone, but it’s a favourite too.