 The
public museums in London are free - these include the
Victoria and
Albert (V&A)Museum, Science Museum,
Natural History Museum and the
British Museum. The V&A
is a museum of art and design, a world treasure house with
collections of fabulous scope and diversity. The
Science Museum was
founded in 1857 with objects shown at the Great Exhibition. Today
the Museum is world renowned for its historic collections,
awe-inspiring galleries and inspirational exhibitions. The
collections at the Natural History
Museum cover virtually all groups of animals, plants, minerals
and fossils from all across the world, and even the universe. These three museums are all within
walking distance of each other and the closet tube station is South
Kensington. The British Museum has galleries dedicated to Africa,
Americas, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, Asia, Europe and
the Middle East. The controversial Elgin Marbles (Parthenon
sculptures) are located in the Ancient Greece gallery. The
British
Library has two copies of the 1215 Magna Carta (one of the most
celebrated documents in all history) and two copies of the Gutenberg
Bible (one belonging to King George III and one to Thomas Grenville).The
National Maritime Museum is
located in Greenwich, home of Greenwich Mean Time, and the Royal
Observatory. Galleries include The Atlantic Worlds, Explorers,
Making Waves, Maritime London, Nelson's Navy, and many more. The
Museum of London
tells the story of London from prehistoric, Roman and Medieval
times. Don't miss the London's Burning: The Great Fire of London
1666 exhibition showing through winter of 2009. The
National Portrait Gallery
shows the most influential characters
in British history portrayed by the finest artists of their
generation and the
National Gallery
houses one of the greatest collections of Western European
 painting
in the world. The Wallace Collection
is a national museum in an historic London town house. In 25
galleries are unsurpassed displays of French 18th century painting,
furniture and porcelain with superb Old Master paintings and a world
class armoury. The wars of the
twentieth century have affected each and every one of us in some way
- find out the stories of those who lived, fought and died in
conflict at Imperial War Museum.
The changing style of the English domestic interior is shown at the
Geffrye Museum in a
series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day. The
Horniman Museum has three
main collections, Anthropology (Ethnography and Archaeology])
comprising 90,000 objects, Natural History with 250,000 specimens,
and Musical Instruments with over 7,000 instruments.
Sir John Soane's Museum
comprises his collections and personal effects, acquired between the
1780s and his death in 1837 and includes important paintings by
Canaletto, Hogarth, Turner, and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
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