Specializarea Sociologie

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Universitatea Constantin Brancusi, Facultatea de Relatii Internationale, Stiinte Administrative si
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London's Best Museums for Kids

Grupa de proiect: Boncu Ionela

Cottea Alexandra Sorina

Content
Forward...3
Bank of England Museum ..4
British Museum ..5
Geffrye Museum..6
London Transport Museum 7
Museum of London ....8
Natural History Museum....11

Forward

London's Best Museums for

Kids

There are lots of fun things to do in London for kids of all ages. Many London attractions are
free so you can find activities for kids without spending a small fortune.

JKL
From the Natural History Museum to the British Museum, there are a whole host of places to
visit in London which provide activities for kids. Most London museums offer special
programmes of free activities for children and almost all are free to enter!

Whether you're looking for things to see at the V&A, exploring the gardens at the Horniman, or
taking a trip of discovery at the Science Museum, take your pick of the top family-friendly
museums in London listed below.

Bank of England Museum

The Bank of England Museum is located within the Bank of England in the City of London. Its
entrance is in Bartholomew Lane, off Threadneedle Street, close to Bank junction and Bank tube
station.1 The museum is open to the general public, free of charge, on weekdays (excluding bank
holidays) and on the day of the Lord Mayor's Show.
Previously, access to the Bank's collections had been by appointment only and visitors were
escorted through the Bank to a small display area. In the 1980s the Bank of England decided that
it would like to make its collections (and indeed itself) available to a greater audience and so
planned to create a new museum which would open in 1994, the year of the Bank's tercentenary.
However, a fire in 1986 caused severe damage to the area of the Bank above the proposed site
and it was decided to begin work then rather than repair and rebuild later. The work took about
18 months to complete and the new museum, designed by exhibition consultants Higgins
Gardner & Partners, was opened in 1988 by Queen Elizabeth II.The Bank of England Museum
covers around 10,000 sq ft and displays a wide-ranging collection detailing the history of the
Bank from its foundation in 1694 to the modern day.2 The displays include a reconstruction of a
late-18th century office; known as the Stock Office, this is where holders of Bank stock would
come to collect their dividends. Displays in this area cover the history of the bank in roughly
chronological order, including many images showing the rebuilding of the Bank in the inter-war
years, and several figures in appropriate attire. Another section, called The Bank Today, uses
modern technology to bring the Bank's current activities to a wider audience. In the rotunda area
at the end of the tour, displays include the Bank's collections of notes and coins, books and
1 "Bank of England Museum". visitlondon.com. 2014-03-28. Retrieved 2014-08-03.
2 "Bank of England Museum". Cityoflondon.gov.uk. Retrieved 2014-08-03.

documents, pictures, furniture, statues, silver and a genuine barof gold (99.79% pure gold) that
can be handled.

British Museum
The British Museum is one of the world's greatest museums, showcasing objects from
prehistoric to modern times. Highlights include the Rosetta Stone and the mummies in the
Ancient Egypt collection. Entry is free but special exhibitions require tickets. There are free
activity backpacks available as well as special events tailored towards children.
The British Museum is a museum in London dedicated to human history and culture. Its
permanent collection, numbering some 8 million works is among the largest and most
comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the
story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.
The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician
and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759
in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over
the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial
footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British
Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1881. Some objects in the collection, most
notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of controversy and of calls for
restitution to their countries of origin.
Until 1997, when the British Library (previously centred on the Round Reading Room) moved to
a new site, the British Museum housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national
library in the same building. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all other national museums in the
United Kingdom it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions. Since 2002
the director of the museum has been Neil MacGregor. 3

3 "National man for British Museum". BBC News. 29 November 2001. Retrieved 27 April 2010.

The Geffrye Museum

Take your kids on a walk through time and explore the history of English interiors at the Geffrye
Museum, set in 18th-century almshouses. Entry is free for the main museum. There is a charge
for adults entering the restored almshouse but entry is still free for children under 16. Download
the fun activity sheets before you arrive.
Founded in 1914, the Geffrye Museum is a museum specialising in the history of the English
domestic interior. Named after Sir Robert Geffrye, a former Lord Mayor of London and Master
of the Ironmongers' Company, it is located on Kingsland Road inShoreditch, London. The main
body of the museum is housed in the Grade I-listed almshouses of the Ironmongers' Company,
built in 1714 thanks to a bequest by Geffrye. The museum was extended in 1998 with an
innovative yet architecturally sympathetic new wing designed by Branson Coates Architects.
The museum shows the changing style of the English domestic interior in a series of eleven
displayed period rooms from 1600 to the present day. The emphasis is on the furnishings,
pictures, and ornaments of the urban middle classes of London.
The museum routinely holds exhibitions and seminars, both in the museum itself and in its
walled herb garden. An annual event is the Christmas Past exhibition, which sees rooms of each
period adorned as they would have been at Christmas.

In addition, the museum has some eighteenth and nineteenth-century almshouse rooms on
display, showing part of the building in its original guise as accommodation for the deserving
poor. 4
In 2011 the Geffrye Museum secured funding of 13.2million from the Heritage Lottery Fund to
build an extension which is due to open in 2015.

London Transport Museum

The London Transport Museum hosts exhibitions connecting transport with the history of
London. Inside you'll find more than 80 vehicles, including a red London bus and the world's
first Underground train. The galleries are full of exhibits for children to play on. Look out for
Interchange, the children's interactive area.
The London Transport Museum, or LT Museum based in Covent Garden, London, seeks to
conserve and explain the transport heritage of Britain's capital city. The majority of the museum's
exhibits originated in the collection of London Transport, but, since the creation of Transport for
London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of
transportation in the city.
The museum operates from two sites within London. The main site in Covent Garden uses the
name of its parent institution, sometimes suffixed by Covent Garden, and is open to the public
every day, having reopened in 2007 after a two year refurbishment. The other site, located

4 Paula Deitz, 'A Furnished Time Machine', in The New York Times, 13 March 1988

in Acton, is known as the London Transport Museum Depot and is principally a storage site
that is open on regular visitor days throughout the year.
The museum was briefly renamed London's Transport Museum to reflect its coverage of topics
beyond London Transport, but it reverted to its previous name in 2007 to coincide with the
reopening of the Covent Garden site.
London Transport Museum is a registered charity under English law. 5

Museum of London

Take the kids on an unforgettable journey into the story of London's past from a time when
lions roamed Trafalgar Square, through the city under Roman rule, to the 21st century capital:
there's something for all ages. Don't miss the Galleries of Modern London, too. Entry is free,
as are family events at weekends.
The Museum of London documents the history of London from prehistoric to modern times.
The museum is located on London Wall, close to the Barbican Centre as part of the striking
Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 1970s as an innovative approach to redevelopment within a bomb-damaged area of the City of London.
5 LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM LIMITED, Registered Charity no. 1123122 at the Charity
Commission

It is a few minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral, overlooking the remains of the Roman city
wall and on the edge of the oldest part of London, now its main financial district. It is primarily
concerned with the social history of London and its inhabitants throughout time. The museum is
jointly controlled and funded by the City of London Corporation and the Greater London
Authority.

The amalgamation of the collections previously held by the City Corporation at

the Guildhall Museum and of the London Museum, which was located in Kensington Palace was
agreed in 1964. The Museum of London Act, allowing for the merger, was passed in the
following year.
The museum was opened in December 1976 as part of the Barbican Estate, The architects
were Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, who adopted an innovative approach to museum design,
whereby the galleries were laid out so that there was only one route through the museum - from
the prehistoric period to the modern galleries.
The museum comprises a series of chronological galleries containing original artefacts, models,
pictures and diagrams, with a strong emphasis on archaeological discoveries, the built city, urban
development and London's social and cultural life, with interactive displays and activities for all
ages. Fragments of the Roman London Wall can be seen just outside the museum. The
prehistoric gallery, "London Before London" and the "Medieval London" gallery have already

been updated, and in 2010 a refurbished gallery on "War, Plague and Fire" opened, covering the
period of the English Civil War and the Great Fire of London.

Lord Mayor's Coach on display in the Museum

The museum had a 20 million redevelopment which was completed in May 2010. This is its
biggest investment since opening in 1976. The re-design, by London-based architects Wilkinson
Eyre, tells the story of London and Londoners from the Great Fire of 1666 to the present day.
The transformation includes four new galleries. The new City Gallery features large street level
windows along London Walland provides an illuminated showcase for the Lord Mayor's State
Coach, which takes to the streets each November for the Lord Mayor's Show.
The Galleries of Modern London increased the museum's exhibition space by 25 percent and
enabled the display of 7,000 objects. Star exhibits include a reconstruction of Georgian pleasure
gardens, the foreboding wooden interior of the Wellclose debtors prison cell, an art deco lift
from Selfridges department store and the puppet stars of BBC children's TV Andy
Pandy and Bill and Ben.
The "Expanding City" gallery covers the period 1660s to 1850. "People's City" addresses 1850 to
1940s including a "Victorian Walk" with recreated shops and public buildings, and sections on
the West End, Suffragettes, World War I and World War II, and everyday life.
The new galleries place a renewed emphasis on contemporary London and contemporary
collecting. "World City" is the gallery which tells London's story from 1950 to the present day.
Fashion looms large here - from formal suits of the 1950s, through to the Mary Quant dress of
the swinging 1960s, hippy chic in the 1970s and the bondage trousers and ripped T-shirts of
the punk era. Fashion comes right up to date with a pashmina from Alexander McQueen's 2008
collection.
The Sackler Hall contains an elliptical LED curtain where the work of up-and-coming young
filmmakers is screened in a bi-annual Museum of London Film Commission, in association with
Film London. A temporary exhibition space, "Inspiring London", features a changing programme
of displays on the theme of creativity and inspiration.

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Natural History Museum

Meet a life-sized blue whale, a roaring T-Rex and a gigantic crocodile; the Natural History
Museum has something to keep all young visitors entertained. Delve into the Darwin Centre, get
hands-on at Investigate the science lab for 7-14 year olds or get shaken up in the earthquake
machine. Entry is free, some charges apply.

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The Natural History Museum in London is a museum exhibiting a vast range of specimens
from various segments of natural history. It is one of three large museums on Exhibition
Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and theVictoria and Albert
Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.
The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items
within five main collections: botany,entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The
museum is a world-renowned centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and
conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as
well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is
particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecturesometimes
dubbed a cathedral of natureboth exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast which dominates
the vaulted central hall. The Natural History Museum Library contains extensive books, journals,
manuscripts, and artwork collections linked to the work and research of the scientific
departments; access to the library is by appointment only.
Although commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum, it was actually officially known
as British Museum (Natural History)until 1992, despite legal separation from the British
Museum itself in 1963. Originating from collections within the British Museum, the
landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881, and later incorporated
the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a
modern facility for storing the valuable collections.
Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History
Museum does not charge an admission fee. The museum is an exempt charity and a non-

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departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Catherine,
Duchess of Cambridge is a patron of the museum.

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Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_Museum,_London
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186338-d189048-ReviewsLondon_Transport_Museum-London_England.html
http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/427179-natural-history-museum

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