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Interior showing the Mayor's state coach

Museum of London.

The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Palaeolithic to the present day. The museum is located in a 1970s building close to the Barbican Centre, approximately 10 minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral and admission is free. It is based on a modern idea of what a museum should be, and there are a lot of visual and audiovisual elements, many of them suitable for young people.

It is operated by the Corporation of London and Department for Culture, Media and Sport and was opened in the 1970s, utilising collections previously held by the Corporation at the Guildhall and also items from other collections. Its first director was Max Hebditch who was succeeded in 1997 by Simon Thurley, now the Chief Executive of English Heritage. The current director is Professor Jack Lohman.

The museum comprises a series of chronological galleries containing original artefacts, models, pictures and diagrams. The museum covers principally social and economic history, with a strong emphasis on archaeological discoveries, the built city and urban development. As of 2004, the museum is engaged in a long term program to overhaul the galleries with contemporary interactive exhibits. The prehistoric gallery, which is called "London Before London" and the Medieval Gallery have already been updated. Star exhibits include the Lord Mayor of London's state coach, and a reconstruction of a street from Victorian London.

Fragments of the Roman London Wall can be seen just outside the museum. The Museum of London includes the Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS), which provides archaeological services in London but also does work elsewhere in the UK and abroad. Archaeological findings made by MoLAS and others working in London are archived at the Museum of London's London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC).

In 2003, the museum opened an offshoot called The Museum in Docklands in a 19th-century warehouse building near Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs. The new museum relates the economic and social history of the London Docklands.

• Museum of London Archaeology Service

• Museum of London website
• Location map from streetmap.co.uk
• UntoldLondon website - also run from the Museum of London
• Map My London new community website launched by the Museum of London on November 16 2006

Coordinates: 51°31′03.74″N, 0°05′48.51″W