Every London “must-see” list will include a few stock activities, from enjoying Montcalm Spa Deals to sipping cocktails on the 10th floor of The Montcalm Royal London House at the snazzy, bird-themed The Aviary London. There will be a musical recommendation on there, as well as a nearby restaurant to the theatre with an awesome pre-show menu option. Now, don’t get the wrong idea – these are stock activities for a reason. They make up the backbone of London’s cultural life and are worth the clout they receive by travel guides! Another item you will always find on the list is an exhibition recommendation – it is an absolute given when there are so many free museums as well as fantastic ticketed exhibitions in London. For those who find they are scouring the lists to find the exhibition-recommendations, this one’s for you: a list of only exhibitions, as well as the best of the best.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year: The Natural History Museum
If you are staying in The Montcalm Hotel in Marble Arch, then you are just a few tube stops away or a brisk walk through Hyde Park from the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. This museum is one of the trio of free museums located on Exhibition Road, so is seemingly never empty. However, during March 2020 and lasting until the end of May 2020, their highlight exhibition showcases the photographs selected as the cream of the crop of the entries for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award. Here, you will find 100 light boxes of the best nature has to offer through the lens of some of the world’s most talented photographers. From two cubs play-fighting while their lioness mother looks on in bemusing disinterest, to a gobsmacked marmot realising its fate as fox-supper, there is so much life, death and everything in between shining out of the photographs on display. A very special part of the exhibition is the section of photographers under the age of ten – you will be utterly blown away by the talented youth out there, capturing nature at its most extraordinary.
Location: Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD
Tickets: Adult £13.95
Child £8.25
Concession £10.95
Family £29-£39.50
Free for members, patrons, children under four and disability personal assistants
Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries: The Science Museum
Another of the free-museum trifecta includes The Science Museum, roughly 5 minutes down the road from The Natural History Museum… if you are walking really slowly (it’s that close!) On 16 November 2019, Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries set up its new permanent home on Level 1 of the museum. The exhibit is made up of three thousand objects, which take up the same amount of space that 1,500 hospital beds would. The objects make up the collections of Henry Wellcome and the Science Museum Group, including everything from Fleming’s penicillin mould to the very first MRI scanner.
Location: Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD
Tickets: Free
Tim Walker: Wonderful Things: The V&A Museum
If you thought we would be listing two of the free-trio, you are mistaken – what are the Science and Natural History museums without their faithful pal, The V&A Museum? When visiting this March, there are a number of free items to view and exhibits to enjoy, but there is one paid exhibition worth every penny and every second of your time, and that is Tim Walker: Wonderful Things, which is ending 22 March and so is an absolutely vital March must-see before it is too late. Tim Walker is one of the world’s most iconic photographers and this exhibition is a window into his creative genius. When you see his pictures, films, photographic sets, and special installations, you feel utterly immersed in his brilliance and it is as if, for just a few moments at a time, you are seeing the world through his eyes.
Location: Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD
Tickets: £15
David Hockney: Drawing from Life: National Portrait Gallery
Located in The National Gallery you will find the National Portrait Gallery, where from the end of February until the end of June, David Hockney’s mystifying, thought-provoking, history-inspiring drawings are on display. His work centres around depictions of himself with his muse, his mother, his curator friend and his master printer friend, which were Celia Birtwell, Laura Hockney, Gregory Evans, and Maurice Payne respectively. The exhibition includes roughly 150 works from both private and public international collections, and help us to frame his character alongside his work through his artistic years.
Location: Wolfson Gallery, St. Martin’s Pl, Charing Cross, London WC2H 0HE
Tickets: £17-20 (without donation)
Free for members and patrons
Currency in crisis: German emergency money 1914–1924: The British Museum
This exhibition has been on since October 2019, and finishes at the end of March, meaning that visitors to London this March simply must make their way to the British Museum to enjoy it before the opportunity passes. Emergency money, or notgeld, was necessary during the early Weimar Republic, and Germany’s relationship with it shines a fascinating light on the chaos that ensued in Germany after WWI. The exhibition offers insight on and a revelation into a microcosmic sect of society in national crisis, and the role temporary currency played historically.
Location: Room 69a, Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG
Tickets: Free
So, for the exhibition-trawlers out there who only read travel guides to find out the latest exhibition happening near their hotel, we hope you now find yourself thoroughly prepared for your next London visit with these five unmissable exhibitions. Between the book now pay later hotels in the city and these free (or reasonably priced) exhibitions, you are in for an inexpensive yet action-packed adventure.
