ListingsUpdated Sat 5 Sep
Exhibitions in London right now
Every exhibition worth the trip that is open in London today, soonest closing first, with the free ones marked. We list the late openings separately because a gallery at eight on a Friday is a different place from the same gallery at two on a Saturday. Checked and rebuilt every month.
Saturday
5 September-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Museum of London Docklands
Until 30 Sep
A Georgian warehouse on the quay with the best account of the docks and the slave trade in the city. Always free, rarely busy on a weekday.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Natural History Museum
Until 4 Sep
Free, permanent, and busiest between eleven and three. Go at opening or after four and Hintze Hall is almost yours. Timed tickets are free but worth booking at the weekend.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Science Museum
Until 4 Sep
The permanent galleries cost nothing. Making the Modern World runs the whole length of the ground floor and is the one to see if you only have an hour.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the V and A
Until 4 Sep
Seven miles of gallery, free, and nobody sees it all. The cast courts and the John Madejski Garden are the two most people remember, and the garden is a good place to stop rather than leave.
-
Exhibitions From £32
Churchill War Rooms
Until 4 Sep
The bunker left as it was on the day it closed in 1945, down to the pins in the map. Book a slot: it sells out, and the queue on the day is outdoors.
-
Exhibitions From £30
Westminster Abbey
Until 4 Sep
Ticketed for sightseeing, free if you come to a service, and Evensong is sung most weekday afternoons in term. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries are up in the triforium, which most visitors miss.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Westminster Cathedral
Until 4 Sep
Neo Byzantine, still unfinished above the arches, and free to walk into. The campanile lift is ticketed and gives one of the least crowded views in central London.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Southwark Cathedral
Until 4 Sep
Free, next door to the market, and almost always empty by comparison. Shakespeare's brother is buried here and there is a memorial to the man himself along the south aisle.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: Kenwood House
Until 4 Sep
A Robert Adam house at the top of the Heath with a Rembrandt self portrait and a Vermeer in it, and no admission charge. The library is the room people stand in longest.
-
Exhibitions From £25
Kensington Palace and the sunken garden
Until 4 Sep
The state apartments are ticketed, but the sunken garden outside them is free and is the bit most people photograph. Go on a weekday morning and the King's Staircase is almost empty.
-
Exhibitions Free
Free entry: the Design Museum
Until 4 Sep
The permanent collection upstairs costs nothing and takes about an hour. The building is the old Commonwealth Institute, and the roof is worth standing under before you look at anything.
-
Exhibitions From £11
Leighton House, the Arab Hall
Until 4 Sep
A Victorian painter built himself a house with a domed hall of Damascus tiles in it, and it is still there. Small, so an hour does it, and rarely busy.
