Victoria and Albert Museum
The V&A is the world's great museum of art and design-a treasure-house of how people make things. Wander from the shimmering Jewellery Gallery to India's satirical automaton Tipu's Tiger, then step into the Cast Courts where Trajan's Column rises in plastered grandeur. Raphael's vast Cartoons unfold like theatre sets; British galleries reveal craft from the Great Bed of Ware to fashion's sharp silhouettes. It's free to enter, with paid blockbusters and a glorious café opening onto a fountain court. Choose two themes-say, sculpture and textiles-and ignore the rest until next time. Use the balcony views in the Cast Courts, and visit on a Friday late opening if you like quieter galleries and a slower, more reflective pace.
Opening Hours
What's not to miss inside?
Cast Courts
Life-size masterpieces in plasterOpened in 1873, these soaring halls hold full-scale casts of European monuments, including Trajan’s Column displayed in two gigantic halves.
📍 Level 1, Rooms 46a-b
Jewellery Gallery
3,000 years of adornmentFrom ancient gold to modern couture pieces, the gallery charts techniques and fashions that travelled across empires and centuries.
📍 Level 2
Raphael Cartoons
Renaissance designs for tapestriesPainted around 1515-16 for the Sistine Chapel, these vast works show apostles and miracles on a monumental scale.
📍 Level 1, Raphael Court
Tipu’s Tiger
18th-century automaton from IndiaCarved c. 1790, this wooden tiger mauls a European soldier while hidden bellows mimic cries - a political satire from Mysore.
📍 South Asia Gallery, Level 1
Great Bed of Ware
Famous Elizabethan bedMade around 1590, over three metres wide, the bed became a celebrity in its own right, mentioned by Shakespeare and graffiti-scarred by guests.
📍 British Galleries, Level 2
Inspire your Friends
- Founded in 1852, the V&A holds over 2.8 million objects across 145 galleries.
- The V&A café opened in the 1860s and is often called the world’s first museum restaurant.
- Trajan’s Column cast is displayed in two halves because the original stands about 35 metres high in Rome.
- Tipu’s Tiger, carved around 1790, hides bellows and pipes that once produced roaring and groaning sounds.
- The Raphael Cartoons were commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel tapestries in 1515-16.
