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Monday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 10am - 5pm Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 10am - 5pm

https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/

London Museum, 150 London Wall, London (2026)

03/06/2026

The Great Pestilence, now known as the Black Death, struck London in November 1348, reaching its peak by spring 1349 and leaving devastation behind.

Spread through infected fleas and the air, it appeared in three deadly forms - bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic - often killing those infected.

With no understanding of the disease, Londoners turned to religion and superstition. The Church called it God’s punishment, prompting prayers and extreme acts like public self-whipping by flagellants. Wealthy citizens fled, while doctors relied on ineffective treatments such as bloodletting.

By 1352, around 35,000 people (over half of the city's population) had died.

The aftermath transformed society. Labour shortages meant workers could demand higher wages, angering the rich and contributing to tensions that led to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.

Although the population slowly recovered, repeated outbreaks made plague a lasting part of London life for centuries.

You can read more about the Great Pestilence here - TW: please be mindful that this blog shares images of mass graves - https://bit.ly/42XyXLS

🖼️ The people of Tournai bury victims of the Black Death, by Pierart dou Tielt, 1353 / External copyright

📷 This bell was made by the de Weston family. Several family members died in 1349, probably from plague.

01/06/2026

"From a young age, I've experienced the racism and marginalisation that comes with being Romani. I've also inherited the creativity and resilience as part of my cultural identity.

"Growing up in Britain in the late 70s to early 90s, signs in pub and restaurant windows often read 'No travellers or Gypsies allowed'.

"In my late teens, those gradually changed to 'Travellers by Appointment Only'. The exclusion of our GRT (Gypsy Romani Traveller) community continued either way."

This June, to mark Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month (GRTHM), artist Corrina Eastwood talks about By Appointment Only, the ongoing art display she co-curated at our Docklands museum, and how it draws directly from that history.

Despite consistent anti-Romani laws throughout history, the communities survived to establish a unique culture - one shaped, in part, by a nomadic way of life. By Appointment Only explores that story.

Head to the link in our comments for more 👇

📷 Romani travellers in Battersea, London, in 1877. John Thomson
📷 A discriminating window sign, 1953. Henry Grant
📷 Corrina (second left) pictured with fellow artists Delaine Le Bas and Dan Turner, as well as Romany historian John Henry Phillips (end right)

28/05/2026

The Roman baby bottle...

Archaeology gives us a glimpse into the world of Londinium. Small pottery feeding bottles like this one, known as 'tettinae', have been found in London. They worked much like today’s baby bottles, helping infants transition to other foods as they grow.

Though not common in Britain, they're frequently found in London and often placed in babies' graves, possibly as offerings for the afterlife.

And now, scientists are studying traces inside them, helping us understand what early childhood looked like nearly 2,000 years ago, and just how much hasn’t changed.

27/05/2026

Remember these?

Also called ‘awareness bracelets’, these charity wristbands exploded in popularity in 2004 and became the ultimate fashion accessory. While critics dismissed them as virtue-signalling, the bands were everywhere...

From celebrities wearing them on the red carpet to children stacking them up their arms like collectibles - charity wristbands tapped into existing cultural traditions, such as swapping woven friendship bracelets, or collecting your music festival wristbands on your arm.

They eventually fell out of fashion towards the end of the noughties and slowly disappeared from the school playground, just like scoubidous and Tamagotchis an so on.

Social media sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter also began to properly take off around this time. You no longer had to have something physically on your wrist to show your support to a cause, or follow a trend. You could simply post about it online instead.

As fashion trends tend to repeat themselves, do you think these will make a comeback?

©️ London Museum

26/05/2026

Public ex*****ons were a defining feature of London life between 1196 and 1868.

These were major public events that attracted enormous crowds - sometimes up to 50,000 people. Executions became occasions for entertainment, with spectators paying for viewing spots, street sellers hawking food and printed ex*****on ballads, and condemned prisoners becoming folk heroes or villains depending on public sentiment.

By the 1860s, attitudes began to change. Campaigners questioned whether public ex*****ons were effective crime deterrents or simply uncivilised spectacles that brutalised society.

This shift in thinking led to the abolition of public ex*****ons in 1868. However, ex*****ons continued within prisons until 1961, and capital punishment itself wasn't abolished in England, Wales and Scotland until 1969.

✏️ The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn / 1747 / William Hogarth / ©️ London Museum
✏️ The Beheading of the Rebel Lords on Great Tower Hill / ©️ London Museum
📷 Medieval Gibbet / © London Museum

24/05/2026

Victoria - Queen of crochet 🧶

Tag someone who could do this! ⬇️

22/05/2026

Sherlock Holmes - fictional detective - is known for his exceptional intellect, observation skills, and early use of forensic methods, solving complex cases across a rapidly changing city.

He navigated London’s foggy streets, criminal underworld, and stark contrasts between wealth and poverty, often travelling with Dr Watson by hansom cab.

Holmes’ identity is closely tied to London, with his fictional home at 221B Baker Street rooted in a real location. The city itself undergoing major transformation at the time, provided the perfect backdrop for his investigations.

The stories reflected real anxieties of Victorian London, including crime and social change, and captured the city’s chaotic, fast-moving nature.

Holmes endures today because he embodies London’s complexity, and his world continues to shape how people imagine the city.

📷 Baker Street station mosaic. External Copyright. Mike Knell CC BY-SA 2.0
📷 A Hansom Cab Stand. Stahl P. ©️ London Museum

19/05/2026

From humble roots to a hardy perennial - join us for a stroll through the Chelsea Flower Show's history 🌹

The first official Chelsea Flower Show was held on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in west London in 1913. But its story stretches back well into the 1800s, emerging from early flower competitions held by the Royal Horticultural Society.

The event settled at its permanent home - the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea - in 1912, with the first official show opening the following year. It's been withstanding the British weather there ever since!

Have you ever visited? Let us know if so in the comments below 👇

📷 A Chelsea Pensioner takes home some flowers from Chelsea Flower Show in 1984. Homer Sykes. Courtesy of Alamy

📷 The Chelsea Flower Show. © Henry Grant Collection/London Museum

16/05/2026

On 16 May 1968 - 58 years ago today - resident Ivy Hodge lit a match to make a cup of tea. The gas explosion that followed caused the entire corner of Ronan Point, a 22-storey tower block in Newham, to collapse. Five people lost their lives.

Ronan Point was barely two months old. High-rise blocks had been championed as a modern solution to London's post-war housing shortage, but the disaster revealed serious flaws in both design and construction.

Its legacy prompted lasting questions about the safety of social housing that, as Grenfell Tower would later show, have never fully been resolved.

Many Londoners still live in tower blocks built around that era.

📷 Ronan Point disaster, 1968. Courtesy of Alamy

15/05/2026

Can you guess which London football team is the oldest? The answer might surprise you.

Before Chelsea - founded in 1905 - walk out at Wembley this weekend, spare a thought for the clubs who were doing this over 140 years ago.

Fulham FC, founded way back in 1879 as a church Sunday school team, is the oldest professional football club in the capital.

Arsenal started life as Woolwich Arsenal, a works team for factory hands at the Royal Arsenal in south-east London.

And West Ham? Born out of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company in 1895 — the 'Irons' nickname still lives on today.

Join us for a look back at the origins of London's oldest clubs 👇

📷 Fulham FC team lineup, 1920. Courtesy of Alamy Fulham FC Official

📷 Tottenham Hotspur's Ralph Ward (white shirt) challenges Fulham's Ronnie Rooke for the ball at White Hart Lane, 1937. Courtesy of Alamy Tottenham Hotspur

📷 Bromley hold the FA Amateur Cup after beating Millwall at The Den in 1938. Courtesy of Alamy Bromley FC

11/05/2026

Portobello Market: London’s largest antiques market 💍

Established by 1870, at first, traders primarily sold fresh food and essentials. But since the 1940s, Portobello has evolved into one of the UK’s largest antiques markets.

The market’s 1,000 vendors stretch along Portobello Road and Golborne Road and are split into five sections: second-hand goods, fashion, household essentials, fruits and vegetables, and the main draw – antiques. Saturday is the main day when all five mini markets are open.

The incredible popularity of the market today can partly be traced back to the Swinging Sixties, when a fashionable, creative crowd began living and shopping in the area.

Since 1966, Portobello Road has also played host to a world-famous celebration of Caribbean culture, the Notting Hill Carnival. Films such as Notting Hill and Paddington Bear have only added to the area’s fame.

📷 Portobello Market, 2018. Courtesy of Alamy
📷 Shoppers and traders, c.1960. ©️ Paul Styles.
📷 A stall at Portobello Road Market, 1965. ©️ Henry Grant

08/05/2026

100 words for 100 years.

One word for every year Sir David Attenborough has walked this earth, watched it and asked us to love it as much as he does.

Born in Isleworth, drawn to nature, armed with curiosity, a camera and a voice unlike any other. He gave us the oceans, the rainforests, creatures we never knew existed and ones we can't afford to lose.

Broadcaster. Naturalist. Storyteller. National treasure. A boy who collected fossils and became the world's greatest storyteller.

100 years on, the planet is still his subject, and we’re still his audience.

Happy birthday, Sir David 🎂

📷 David Attenborough with Prince Charles and Princess Anne - London, ©️ Alamy

06/05/2026

Throwing down the gauntlet at coronations: a lost Westminster Hall tradition 🧤

In medieval times, disputes could be settled through trial by combat - a challenge issued by throwing an armoured glove, or gauntlet, onto the ground.

The dukes of Normandy used champions to fight duels on their behalf, and when William the Conqueror took the English throne in 1066, he chose his friend Robert Marmion for the role, rewarding him with an estate at Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire.

That estate - and the title of King's Champion - has passed down through the generations, held by the Dymoke family since 1350. Their motto says it all: pro rege dimico - "I contend for the king."

The gauntlet may no longer be thrown, but the tradition lives on. At Charles III's coronation in 2023, the King's Champion carried the royal standard.

🎨 Two engraved portraits, 1821-1838, one of the Royal Champion holding aloft the Coronation Cup and one of the Champion holding aloft the Coronation glove. Unknown. ©London Museum

04/05/2026

This ornate 17th-century object is a cast iron mystery 🤔

Can you guess what it would have been used for? Answer tomorrow!

01/05/2026

Did you know that Londoners have been marking May Day for well over a century?

It started as a fight for basic rights. In May 1890, 300,000 people gathered in Hyde Park demanding an eight-hour working day.

The marches kept coming, decade after decade. Photographer Henry Grant was there to document them through the post-war years - families with children, trade union banners, peace campaigners reacting to the Cold War, protesters calling for a halt to nuclear weapons testing.

It wasn't until 1978 that May Day became an official bank holiday in England and Wales - when a Labour government pushed it through.

These photographs from our collection are a reminder of the history behind the day off we all enjoy to this day.

🔗 See Henry Grant's photographs of London's May Day marches - link in the comments.

Did your family ever march on May Day? We'd love to hear your memories. 👇

29/04/2026

London didn't invent pantomime. But it's where panto became, well… panto 🎭

The origins are actually Italian - travelling street performers doing acrobatics, slapstick and mime all across Europe in the 1500s and 1600s. When their shows reached London's stages in the early 1700s, they were billed as entertainment "in the Italian manner."

But London took it and ran with it.

A showman called John Rich began staging magical, dialogue-free spectacles - because back then, only three London theatres were even allowed to use spoken words on stage. So performers had to make you laugh and gasp using nothing but their bodies.

Then came Joseph Grimaldi.

His clown act at Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden in the early 1800s was the hottest ticket in London. He invented the white face, the red cheeks, the colourful costume - the image of a clown that's lodged in our heads ever since. And he performed himself half to death for it, dying in poverty in 1837, barely able to walk.

The Victorians finished the job - fairy tale plots, dames played by men, principal boys played by women, Boxing Day openings, music hall stars. By the end of the 1800s it was essentially the panto we still pile into every December.

📷 Stars rehearse at the London Palladium for Jack and the Beanstalk, 1973. Courtesy of alamy.com

27/04/2026

197 years ago today, London Zoo opened its gates in Regent's Park 🦁

It was set up in 1826 for scientific study, became one of the city's most visited attractions, and introduced the world to its first public aquarium, its first reptile house - and a bear called Winnie who inspired Winnie-the-Pooh.

It also kept animals in conditions we would not accept today.

Criticisms of captivity go back to its very early years, and the debate around zoos hasn't gone away.

We've published a short history of the zoo - the famous residents, the architecture and the questions that still don't have easy answers. Link in comments.

What's your view on zoos today? 👇

🎨 Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park. Hullmandel, Charles, Scharf, George. © London Museum

23/04/2026

This Sunday, tens of thousands of runners will cross Tower Bridge, pass the Cutty Sark and finish on the Mall - a route that has become one of London's most recognisable rituals since the first race in 1981 🏃

But London's relationship with the marathon goes back further. It was the 1908 London Olympics that gave us the 26.2-mile distance - a route plotted from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium, extended slightly so the finish would sit in front of the royal box. That measurement became the standard used by every marathon on earth.

When journalist and Olympian Chris Brasher ran the 1979 New York Marathon, he came home asking whether London could stage something similar - "do we have the heart and hospitality to welcome the world?"

Two years later, it did. Over £1 billion has been raised for charity since that first race.

Are you running on Sunday? Or cheering from the sidelines? Tell us your marathon memories below 👇

📷 Runners crossing Tower Bridge during the 2025 London Marathon. External Copyright. Vuk Valcic/Alamy Live News

21/04/2026

Born 100 years ago today, Elizabeth II was crowned Queen on 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey, following the death of her father George VI the previous year.

The Coronation was a significant moment in British broadcasting history - the BBC's live coverage reached an audience that, for many, meant gathering around a neighbour's television set for the first time.

See more memories from that day: https://bit.ly/4dS9V7s

📷 Coronation ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II, June 2, 1953. Courtesy of alamy.com

20/04/2026

Did you know the Cutty Sark raced across the oceans to bring Britain's favourite brew home? 🍵

This legendary tea clipper made eight successful voyages to China, competing with rival ships to deliver the freshest tea to Victorian tearooms.

Built in 1869, the Cutty Sark returned from its first voyage with 600 tonnes of the precious leaf – Victorians couldn't get enough!

Now you can visit this remarkable ship in Greenwich and discover the fascinating stories of the crews who sailed her.

17/04/2026

You might know Wall's for Cornettos and Twisters. But for thousands of west Londoners, Wall's meant something else entirely 🌭

At its peak, the Wall's factory on Atlas Road in Acton employed over 3,000 people, producing everything from sausages to pies under one roof.

In 1959, photographer Henry Grant - whose extraordinary archive we hold - was given rare access to document the workers inside.

The factory closed around 1978. The site is now earmarked for redevelopment as part of the HS2 transport hub at Old Oak Common.

Did you work at Wall's, or grow up knowing someone who did? We'd love to hear your memories in the comments.

📷 Workers at Walls Sausage Factory. © Henry Grant Collection/London Museum

15/04/2026

Today is World Arts Day, so we're celebrating a Londoner who spent his entire career cramming the city's chaos, corruption and bad behaviour onto canvas 🎨

William Hogarth was born near Smithfield Market in 1697 and never really left London - or its worst habits.

Hogarth was a smart businessman who reproduced his paintings as engravings to reach a wider audience. Without the need for rich patrons to back him, he was free to choose his subjects.

Gin Lane (pictured) is a vivid portrait of neglect, disorder and wickedness, which dramatises the effects of gin on the poor area of St Giles, where alcohol addiction was a major problem.

Gin was extremely cheap in the 1700s and was linked to a rise in crime, poverty and the death rate.

Hogarth’s print was made as propaganda for a campaign to tax spirits. It was published alongside Beer Street, an image showing an idealised community of beer-drinkers.

Hogarth had a huge influence on art, and on our perception of 18th-century London. Today, his work is often used to define an age in our city’s history – ‘Hogarthian London’.

🖼️ Gin Lane by William Hogarth. ©️ Wellcome Collection

14/04/2026

Easter Sunday, 14 April 1471. Just north of what is now the London Borough of Barnet, two armies faced each other in thick morning fog.

Cannons fired through the night. Arrows rained down at dawn. By the time the mist lifted, around a thousand men were dead.

The Battle of Barnet was one of the most decisive moments of the Wars of the Roses - a bloody showdown between cousins, in which the most powerful man in England switched sides, paid with his life, and changed the course of the monarchy forever.

555 years ago this week, north London was a battlefield.

13/04/2026

Another Monday, another mystery object from our archives!

Can you guess what this is?

Made some time between 1846 and 1855, it measures 122 mm long (with beads) and is a mixture of wood, metal, glass and pewter.

Don't get yourself in a tangle trying to work this one out - check back for the answer tomorrow!

11/04/2026

Imagine the footsteps this collar once followed… 🐾

This 18th-century copper alloy dog collar carries a story etched in metal:
‘Henry Hill am [or Hillam], Butcher, Carnaby Market 1776’.

More than just decoration, collars like this were a clear mark of ownership. Engraved with a name and secured with a padlock, they could only be removed by the person holding the key.

But this was no ordinary pet. Dogs at the time were hardworking companions often helping butchers drive cattle through busy streets and guarding homes and businesses. They were practical to keep, often fed on offcuts, yet essential to everyday life.

It may seem like a simple object, but it offers a powerful glimpse into the lives of both people and animals in 18th-century London.

© London Museum
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London Museum