VERDICT: WE GAVE 4 OUT OF 5 TICKETS AND HERE’S WHY!
This guide forms part of our complete UK Travel Guide, featuring scenic road trips, iconic destinations, practical travel advice and honest first-hand travel experiences from across the United Kingdom.
This article is part of our 3 Days in London: Ultimate Guide. We explored St Paul’s Cathedral, Churchill War Rooms, British Museum, Tower Bridge and Tower of London, experienced Frameless Immersive Art, visited Abbey Road Studios and stayed at the Park Plaza Hotel. Follow our personal experiences and practical visitor tips. Highly Recommended – 5 Ticket Rated. Read the complete three-day London guide here:
If you only have a short amount of time, make sure you check out our guide to 24 Hours in London.
Two Hours Inside One of the World’s Great Museums and Why We Needed Much Longer
During our three-day stay in London, we decided to spend a couple of hours exploring the British Museum. In hindsight, a couple of hours was nowhere near enough.
We left the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge and headed towards Bloomsbury. By Tube, one convenient route is to walk to Waterloo Station, take the Northern line northbound to Tottenham Court Road, and then walk approximately 10 minutes to the museum. Alternatively, the walk from the hotel to the British Museum is roughly 30–35 minutes, taking you across the Thames and through central London.
What a stunning old building that hosts the museum… if you can imagine this… it was founded in 1753! The style is called Greek Revival, which makes sense, as it’s all giant columns & vast expanses of marble floors, and enormous steps, something you’d expect to see in Greece, not London.
When we arrived, we joined the security line and, after about 15 minutes, made our way inside.
Our first impression was simple: this place is huge.
The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, with a collection totalling at least eight million objects, documenting cultures from across the world and spanning an extraordinary period of human history.
Where Do You Start?
That was probably our biggest challenge.
With limited time, there was no possibility of seeing everything, so we concentrated primarily on the Egyptian galleries and the Reading Room.
The Museum’s collections cover an enormous range of civilizations and subjects, including Africa, Oceania and the Americas, Asia, Britain, Europe and Prehistory, Egypt and Sudan, Greece and Rome, the Middle East, Coins and Medals, Prints and Drawings and Horology—the study and measurement of time. Behind the public galleries, its collections also support extensive conservation, scientific research and academic study. Researchers can arrange access to objects through the Museum’s specialist study rooms.
For visitors, however, that enormous scale means some planning is worthwhile.
We found the signage a little tricky at times when trying to locate what we wanted to see next. We spent some of our limited time walking backwards and forwards, occasionally failing to find what we were looking for and eventually giving up.
Next time, we would arrive with a much clearer plan.
Exploring Ancient Egypt
With only a couple of hours available, we spent much of our visit exploring the Egyptian collection.
This is one of the Museum’s great collections, covering thousands of years of life and culture in the Nile Valley. Among its internationally important objects are mummies, coffins, papyri, monumental sculptures and the Rosetta Stone, which provided the key that helped scholars decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Walking through these galleries really puts human history into perspective. Objects created thousands of years ago are suddenly directly in front of you, and we found ourselves constantly stopping to look more closely. But surprisingly, our favourite part of the British Museum wasn’t an ancient Egyptian artefact.
It was a room filled with books.
Our Favourite: The Reading Room
Anyone who knows us probably wouldn’t be surprised that we were immediately drawn to the magnificent Reading Room. For us, it was one of the highlights of the entire museum.
Construction began in 1854, and the extraordinary circular space was completed three years later. Its great domed roof was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, although unlike the Pantheon, the Reading Room’s dome is not free-standing.
We have visited the Pantheon ourselves, and standing inside the Reading Room, we could certainly see the resemblance.
Historically, the Reading Room became one of the world’s great centres of learning. Among the famous writers associated with it were Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes; definitely a favourite of mine!
The scale of the library holdings is remarkable. The Museum’s Library and Archive today contain more than 300,000 volumes, reflecting the cultures and subjects represented throughout its collections.
Historic descriptions of the Reading Room and surrounding book storage are equally impressive, with kilometres of bookcases and shelving once supporting this extraordinary centre of research. For two people who love books, history and old libraries, we could have spent considerably longer here.
More Than a Visitor Attraction
One thing we found particularly interesting is that the British Museum isn’t simply somewhere tourists come to look at historic objects. It remains an important international centre for research.
Students and researchers can arrange access to collections and archives to study cultures from around the world, past and present. Specialist study areas cover subjects ranging from Egypt and Sudan, Greece and Rome and the Middle East to Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, coins, medals, prints, drawings and horology.
The Museum’s library resources are also available to registered researchers and members of the public, with its holdings focusing heavily on the world cultures represented within the Museum.
If we lived in London, we could easily imagine ourselves becoming members simply so we could return regularly and explore the Museum properly rather than trying to absorb everything in one visit.
Taking a Break
There are also places to stop for something to eat or drink during your visit.
We found food and drink options within and around the Museum, including café and restaurant facilities, along with places to sit and take a break before heading back into the galleries.
After leaving, we stopped for a drink and spent some additional time outside taking photographs of the magnificent Museum building. It was a good opportunity to reflect on just how little of the collection we had actually managed to see.
Our British Museum Experience
We spent only a couple of hours at the British Museum, and that was our biggest mistake.
Despite our limited time, we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Egyptian galleries, seeing some of the Museum’s most important objects and, especially, spending time in the wonderful Reading Room.
The Museum holds at least eight million objects, while only a fraction can ever be displayed at one time. Trying to properly experience a museum of this scale in two hours was always going to be ambitious.
The slightly confusing navigation also cost us some valuable time, so we would recommend deciding on your must-see galleries and exhibits before arriving.
Would we return? Absolutely. There is far too much here for a single short visit, and we left knowing we had barely scratched the surface.
For our visit, we gave the British Museum three Tickets and next time, we’ll make sure we give ourselves considerably more time to explore.
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