The Victoria and Albert Museum, known to everyone as the V&A, is London's museum of art, design and performance, with collections spanning five thousand years. At the Victoria and Albert Museum you can move from Renaissance sculpture to fashion, jewellery, Japanese armour and twentieth-century furniture in a few minutes. Entry is free, and it shares South Kensington with two other major museums.
Why go to the Victoria and Albert Museum
The V&A grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851, founded to inspire British designers and manufacturers with examples of the best work from around the world. That purpose still shows: this is a museum about how things are made and why they look the way they do, from ceramics and textiles to theatre costumes and architecture.
The building is a sight in itself, with tiled Victorian rooms, grand staircases and a courtyard garden. Because the collection is so broad, almost anyone will find a gallery that speaks to them, and it rewards wandering rather than following a fixed route.
Getting there by Tube
The nearest station is South Kensington, on the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines. From inside the station, follow signs for the museums into a long pedestrian tunnel that runs north under Exhibition Road. It brings you up near the museum's Exhibition Road entrance, which is useful on wet days. Walking at street level is also easy and takes about five minutes.
- The Piccadilly line runs direct from Heathrow, so the museum is easy to reach on the way into London.
- The main entrance is on Cromwell Road; the Exhibition Road entrance leads in through a modern porcelain-tiled courtyard.
- Contactless and Oyster cards are accepted across the Tube.
Victoria and Albert Museum tickets and opening hours
General entry to the V&A is free, with no booking needed for the permanent galleries. Major exhibitions are ticketed and, for popular shows such as the big fashion exhibitions, booking well in advance is a good idea. Members get in to exhibitions free. Check the official website, vam.ac.uk, for current exhibitions, prices and opening hours, including any late opening evenings.
Highlights to look for
The Cast Courts
Two enormous halls hold plaster casts of famous monuments, including a full-size Trajan's Column cut in two and a copy of Michelangelo's David. It is an unusual and impressive sight.
Fashion
The circular Fashion gallery traces dress over several centuries, and the museum's fashion exhibitions are among the most popular in London.
The Raphael Cartoons
These large designs for tapestries in the Sistine Chapel, on loan from the Royal Collection, have a room of their own. They are among the most important Renaissance works in Britain, and the room is usually quiet enough to sit and study them.
Tipu's Tiger and the Ardabil Carpet
A mechanical tiger attacking a soldier, made for an Indian ruler, and one of the oldest dated carpets in the world are two long-standing favourites.
The garden and the café
The John Madejski Garden is a pleasant courtyard with a shallow pool where children paddle in summer. The original refreshment rooms, decorated by William Morris's firm and others, are said to be the first museum café in the world, and still serve food.
Best time to visit and how long
Weekday mornings and mid-afternoons are generally calm, while weekends and school holidays bring families to the whole of South Kensington. Rainy days are busy, because all three museums fill up at once.
Two to three hours is a good first visit, enough to see a handful of galleries and have lunch. The museum is huge, so pick a few areas from the floor plan rather than trying to see it all, and come back another day if you can. Since entry is free, repeat visits cost nothing.
Nearby on the same stop
South Kensington is London's museum quarter:
- Natural History Museum: directly across Exhibition Road, with its dinosaurs and grand central hall.
- Science Museum: just north on Exhibition Road, a favourite with families.
- Brompton Oratory: a large Italianate Catholic church next to the V&A on Brompton Road.
- Royal Albert Hall and Hyde Park: a ten-minute walk north up Exhibition Road.
For more around this station, open the Victoria and Albert Museum on Around the Metro, or browse the London Underground map.