5 cities · 18 museums
Best Museums in United Kingdom
Independent visitor guides with admission, hours, and collection highlights.
Quick answer
World Museum Guide covers 18 museums in United Kingdom across 5cities — including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Churchill War Rooms, Design Museum — with admission prices, opening hours, and highlights for each. 15 of them offer always-free standard admission.
Planning your visit
How many museums are in United Kingdom?
World Museum Guide covers 18 museums in United Kingdom — 15 with free standard admission.
What are the best museums in United Kingdom?
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Churchill War Rooms, Design Museum, Imperial War Museum, Manchester Art Gallery.
Are museums in United Kingdom free?
15 museums offer always-free standard admission. Special exhibitions may require separate tickets.
Browse by city
Birmingham
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery opened in 1885 inside the Council House, a confident statement of civic ambition. The galleries surround the Round Room with its monumental sculpture.
London
Churchill War Rooms
The Churchill War Rooms are the underground bunker beneath Whitehall where Winston Churchill and his war cabinet directed Britain's fight against Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945. Preserved exactly as they were abandoned on 16 August 1945, the complex offers an unparalleled immersion in the day-to-day machinery of wartime government.
London
Design Museum
The world's leading museum devoted to contemporary design and architecture, on High Street Kensington — fashion, graphics, product design, and the annual Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition.
London
Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum London tells the story of conflict involving Britain and the Commonwealth from the First World War to the present day. Founded in 1917 while the Great War still raged, it was established to record the experiences of those who lived, fought, and died in the conflict.
Manchester
Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery occupies a grand Neoclassical building on Mosley Street in the city centre, with a modern extension added in 2002. Founded in 1823, it was one of the first free public art galleries in Britain and remains free to the permanent collection today.
Edinburgh
National Galleries of Scotland
The National Galleries of Scotland comprise the National, the Portrait Gallery on Queen Street, and Modern One and Two in the city's west. Together they form one of Europe's great public art collections.
Edinburgh
National Museum of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland occupies two adjoining buildings in Edinburgh's Old Town: the original Victorian Royal Museum building (1866), with its magnificent glass-roofed Grand Gallery, and the striking modern addition opened in 1998, clad in honey-coloured Clashach sandstone. The combined complex is one of Scotland's most visited attractions.
London
National Portrait Gallery
Founded in 1856, the National Portrait Gallery moved to its current building beside the National Gallery in 1896. It reopened in 2023 after a major refurbishment by Jamie Fobert Architects.
London
Natural History Museum
Alfred Waterhouse's Romanesque-revival building opened in 1881 to display the natural-history collections that had outgrown the British Museum. The terracotta facade is decorated with sculptures of living and extinct species.
London
Science Museum
Founded in 1857 with material from the Great Exhibition, the Science Museum has grown to hold more than 300,000 items charting the history of science, technology, medicine, and industry.
London
Tate Britain
Founded by sugar magnate Henry Tate in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art, the building was rechristened Tate Britain in 2000 when the modern collection moved across the river.
Liverpool
Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool opened in 1988 inside the Grade I-listed Albert Dock warehouses, designed by Jesse Hartley in 1846. James Stirling led the conversion, marking the first Tate gallery outside London.
London
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art created from 1900 to the present day. It is part of the Tate group, together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, and Tate St Ives.
London
The British Museum
The British Museum, located in the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence.
London
The Courtauld Gallery
The Courtauld was founded in 1932 by industrialist Samuel Courtauld and others to teach art history at university level. It moved into Somerset House's North Wing in 1989.
London
The National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.
London
The Wallace Collection
Bequeathed to the British public by Lady Wallace in 1897, the collection was built by four generations of the Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. It opened to the public in 1900.
London
Victoria and Albert Museum
Founded in 1852 in the wake of the Great Exhibition, the V&A was conceived as a museum to inspire British industry and design education. It moved to its current South Kensington site in 1857 and has expanded continuously ever since.