V&A East Storehouse: free, open late, and the bag rule

Most museums show you a curated fraction of what they own and keep the rest in a warehouse you will never see. V&A East Storehouse is the warehouse, and they have opened it.

It is a working store rather than a gallery: shelves, crates, racks and objects at every scale, arranged for storage rather than for display, and you walk through the middle of it.

Free, no booking, and open until ten twice a week

Checked on the museum’s own site on 9 September 2026. Admission is free and you do not need to book.

The hours are the part that matters most for anyone reading this site. Daily 10:00 to 18:00, and on Thursday and Saturday it stays open until 22:00. A free museum open until ten at night is a rare thing in London, and it makes Storehouse a genuine evening plan rather than a daytime one.

At busy times there may be a queue. The museum states that if the wait is likely to be more than 30 minutes, priority goes to people with bookings and to those who cannot stand in a queue for long periods.

The bag rule nobody mentions

Bags and coats are not allowed in the main hall. This is a working storehouse, not a gallery, and the rule is about the objects rather than about you.

You leave everything in the Welcome Space. There are free lockers on a first-come, first-served basis, which means at busy times there may not be one free. Travelling light is the answer, and it is the single most useful thing to know before setting off.

Order an Object, which needs two weeks

The thing that makes Storehouse genuinely different: you can request any object from the collection and have it brought out for you to look at, up close, for free. There are around half a million works to choose from.

Order an Object is booked online and appointments need to be made at least two weeks before your visit. So it is not something to decide on the day, and if it is the reason you are going, book it before anything else.

If you have not booked, Object Encounters are free group sessions run several times a day, in which staff bring out and talk about particular objects. No booking needed.

Getting there

Parkes Street, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, London E20 3AX, inside the Here East building. Hackney Wick Overground is 0.3 miles away, an eight minute walk. Stratford is 0.9 miles and about twenty minutes; Stratford International is 0.8 miles and about seventeen. All those stations have step-free access, and so does the Storehouse entrance.

The e5 Storehouse cafe is open through the day and on the two late evenings. Note that e5 is a bakery and the museum states it is not suitable for coeliacs, though there are vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options while daily stock lasts.

More free, and more late

Free museums in London covers what else costs nothing, museum lates covers the evening openings across the city, and after dark lists what is still running when Storehouse shuts.