Gunnersbury Park Museum
A free, local-history heavyweight inside an Italianate Rothschild mansion. Displays stitch together Ealing and Hounslow’s stories—industry, immigration, leisure—while the state rooms whisper how Victorian wealth staged itself. It’s ideal for families (hands-on rooms, changing shows) and architecture fans (ceilings, service corridors, bell boards). Plan 60–90 minutes, then loop the park and lakes.
Opening Hours
What's not to miss inside?
Rothschild State Rooms
Showcase of 19th-century splendourOrnate ceilings and long enfilades were social technology—designed to choreograph entrances, glances, and gossip.
📍 Ground floor, central suite
Made in Ealing & Hounslow
How suburbs powered a metropolisFrom film studios to factories, the ‘local’ turns out to be global—goods, workers and ideas moving in and out.
📍 First floor, local-industry gallery
Servants’ Spaces & Kitchens
The machine room of the mansionBell boards, scullery sinks and store rooms show how many hands it took to stage a single dinner.
📍 Basement/service areas
Parkland Loop
Landscape as status (and now, commons)What began as a private pleasure ground became one of west London’s best free green spaces.
📍 Outside, lakes and lawns
Inspire your Friends
- The museum opened in 1929—making it one of London’s earliest purpose-made local history museums.
- The house’s bell board once connected to dozens of rooms; a single dinner could require more than 20 staff behind the scenes.
- Much of today’s public parkland was the private estate of the Rothschild family—whose parties drew politicians, artists and royalty.
