Royal Hospital Chelsea Museum
The in-house museum of the 17th-century Royal Hospital Chelsea—founded by Charles II and built by Sir Christopher Wren—tells the story of the Chelsea Pensioners through uniforms, medals, personal memorabilia and models of the riverside complex. It connects residents’ lives to three centuries of British military and architectural history.
Opening Hours
What's not to miss inside?
Founding & Wren’s Plan
Explains the 1680s foundation for ‘old, lame or infirm’ soldiers and the classical plan that still structures daily life.Study the site model to see how courts, Chapel and Great Hall interlock—military discipline expressed in brick and symmetry.
📍 Introductory displays
Scarlet Coats & Pensioners’ Kit
Original garments and insignia chart the evolution of the famous scarlet dress uniform and everyday blue serge.Compare buttons, cap badges and tailors’ labels—tiny changes reveal shifts in dress regulations over decades.
📍 Uniform cases
Medal & Memory Displays
Bequeathed decorations and campaign souvenirs link individual Pensioners to global conflicts from the 18th century onward.Pick one medal group and read the route it maps—battles condensed into a bar of coloured ribbon.
📍 Central gallery
Duke of Wellington Material
Personal commemoratives and documents connect the Hospital to Britain’s most famous soldier-statesman.Use portraits and ephemera to place Wellington within the Hospital’s longer tradition of veteran care.
📍 Thematic case
Inspire your Friends
- The Royal Hospital Chelsea was founded in the reign of Charles II and designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1680s as a permanent home for army veterans—an architectural cousin of Les Invalides in Paris.
- The ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ scarlet coat—still worn for ceremonial duties—derives from 18th-century army dress; museum examples show how cloth, cut and insignia evolved while the colour tradition endured.
- A detailed site model in the museum charts alterations to Wren’s riverside complex across three centuries, including later additions that respected the original axial plan.
