Science Museum, London

The Science Museum on Exhibition Road began life alongside its neighbour, the Victoria and Albert Museum, as part of the South Kensington Museum. It was founded in 1857 from the collections of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition, absorbed the Patent Office Museum, and became an independent institution in 1909. Its main building by Sir Richard Allison opened in stages between 1919 and 1928, and the Wellcome Wing was added in 2000. Like Britain's other national museums, it is free to enter.

What sets it apart is the number of genuine firsts on display. The Energy Hall opens with the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution, including the oldest surviving beam engine by James Watt, and nearby is Watt's entire garret workshop, reassembled from more than 8,000 objects after being sealed for a century following his death. In Making the Modern World stand Puffing Billy, the oldest surviving steam locomotive, the Apollo 10 command module that circled the Moon in 1969, a German V‑2 rocket and Crick and Watson's double-helix model of DNA.

Upstairs, the Winton mathematics gallery, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, has a working Difference Engine No. 2 built by the museum to Charles Babbage's design and completed in 1991. The medical galleries on the first floor, opened in 2019 with thousands of objects from Henry Wellcome's collection, trace medicine from antiquity to today, and the Clockmakers' Museum, the oldest collection of its kind, has found a home here. Wonderlab, with live experiments and shows, is among the most popular galleries.

Getting there

The museum is on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, west London, about 1 km from Chelsea. London City Airport (LCY) is about 16 km away.