London Museum to host Educational Visits from February 2027

While educational bookings open in early 2027, the general public will get their first look when the free permanent galleries open on November 28. A secondary phase of the development will culminate in 2028 with the opening of the adjacent Poultry Market, which will further expand the footprint with two temporary exhibition spaces, a dedicated learning center, and an expansive collections store.

The upcoming school programming is built around immersive, multi-sensory engagement. Alongside guided educational tours, the museum will launch free, interactive "Showspace" sessions. These performance-based storytelling workshops are designed to bring pivotal historical epochs to life, covering monumental events like the Great Fire of London, life in Roman Londinium, and lesser-known narratives that have quietly shaped the metropolis over two millennia.

The institution’s commitment to young audiences is also embedded directly into its collections. Among the core displays is the Young Londoner’s Archive—the museum’s first major co-collecting initiative created alongside local youth. Developed through award-winning research that engaged more than 1,000 schoolchildren across all 33 London boroughs, the archive ensures that contemporary youth culture sits alongside ancient history.

The main site at the General Market is architecturally designed across three fluid, interconnected areas, creating a seamless journey from the present day deep into the city's origins:

• Real Time (Heritage Fund Street): Serving as the museum's primary entrance, this covered former street acts as a live digital threshold, capturing data and real-time sensory inputs from the modern city outside;

• Our Time (Linbury Hall): Positioned as the museum’s central civic hub, this vibrant space is anchored by 13 massive installations featuring eclectic artifacts from living memory. Highlights include Olympic champion Tom Daley’s 2012 diving trunks, Queen Victoria’s mourning dress, and Charles Dickens’ personal desk chair. Adding to the kinetic energy, a six-meter viewing window allows visitors to watch live Thameslink trains travel right past the gallery, offering commuting passengers a direct view into the exhibition space; and

• Past Time (The Market Vaults): Located underground in the cavernous Victorian vaults, this subterranean gallery presents the chronological and thematic story of London’s deep past.

Housing a total collection of more than seven million objects, the museum's new displays showcase iconic symbols of London's civic and cultural heritage. Prominent highlights on display include the elaborate gold Lord Mayor’s Coach, suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst’s hunger strike medal, the infamous Whitechapel Fatberg, and prima ballerina Anna Pavlova’s fragile "Dying Swan" performance dress.

Archaeological collections feature heavily in the underground vaults. The Bloomberg Collection—a trove of over 14,000 Roman artifacts gifted to the museum—includes preserved wooden writing tablets that preserve the earliest written voices and transactions of the city's first residents. Nearby, in the newly designated Goldsmiths’ Gallery, visitors can view the famous Cheapside Hoard. This glittering cache of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery will be presented in the most comprehensive and complete public display ever assembled.

The London Museum has officially announced that it will begin hosting educational visits for school groups starting in February 2027. This long-awaited news marks a pivotal milestone in the institution’s move to its new home within Smithfield’s historic General Market, providing students and teachers direct access to brand-new, free permanent galleries in the heart of the capital.

The transition to the General Market represents a major victory for heritage and urban regeneration. Marking the museum’s 50th anniversary, the opening follows a decade-long, £437 million transformation of one of the capital's most iconic Victorian structures. Located in the historic City of London, the market site has been brought back into public use for the first time in over three decades through the collaborative vision of architects Stanton Williams, Asif Khan, and conservation expert Julian Harrap.

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