In the heart of London, is Benjamin Franklin House, the world’s only remaining Franklin home.
The Historical Experience presents the excitement and uncertainty of Franklin’s London years using rooms where so much took place as staging for a drama that seamlessly integrates live performance, cutting edge lighting, sound and visual projection.
The Student Science Centre focuses on Franklin’s London science – from lightning rods to hydrodynamics, allowing school children to satifsy their historical and scientific curiosity, free of charge. Outreach, including Ben’s Travelling Suitcase, brings our educational activities into schools and the community.
The top floor Robert H. Smith Scholarship Centre is a focal point in Europe for Franklin and the myriad subjects with which he is associated, featuring a full set of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, as catalogued by Yale University, as well as an active internship programme, and nearly 40 public events per year.
Renowned for being one of the best contemporary art centres in London, this is also a great place to have afternoon tea.
In warmer weather you can sit outside in the garden with a cup of fresh mint tea and home-made cake.
Renowned Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle lived here from 1851 to 1881 with his wife Jane, who was not only a prolific letter writer herself, but also encouraged her illustrious, rather shy husband.
Built in 1708, this is a beatiful house to wander around, with the added attraction of discovering the lives of two 19th-century literary celebrities.
Chisenhale Gallery supports the production and presentation of new forms of artistic activity and engages diverse audiences, both local and international. This expands on their award winning, 32-year history as one of London’s most innovative forums for contemporary art and our reputation for producing important solo commissions with artists at a formative point in their career.
They enable emerging or under-represented artists to make significant steps and pursue important new directions in their practice. At the heart of Chisehale’s Gallery programme is a remit to commission new work, supporting artists from project inception to realisation and representing an inspiring and challenging range of voices, nationalities and art forms.
The Courtauld Gallery Café is an oasis of calm set within the elegant surroundings of Somerset House.
The Café has indoor and outdoor seating and is the perfect spot to relax and unwind. Delicious seasonal food is made on site all year round. You can enjoy freshly baked cakes, salads, soups and light meals.
The Cuming museum is based on the worldwide collection of the Cuming family and is also the museum of Southwark’s history. Collections include archaeology, ethnography, art, local history, social history and natural history.
As well as the Cumings’ worldwide collection, the museum has many local history objects which reflect Southwark’s rich and diverse history and its unfolding story.
The museum opened new public spaces on the ground floor of the former Walworth Town Hall in 2006. The changing exhibition space and activity room housed regular events and exhibitions plus two permanent displays showed key items from the collections.
This sophisticated gallery is one of the few commercial art spaces south of the river and it’s well worth making the trip to see work by emerging and established artists in this beautiful exhibition space.
Dr Johnson’s House is a small historic town house in the City of London that preserve the memory of Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest literary figures of the 18th-century, most famously compiling A Dictionary of the English Language.
They are an independent, fully accredited museum and a registered charity (no. 1122396). The house has two members of staff and a dedicated team of volunteers who together run a vibrant programme of education, exhibitions and events.
With its cool veined marble table-tops, black felted seating and pale stone floor, this is a very stylish café to enjoy a mid-morning coffee or afternoon tea.
Professional chefs bake delicious cakes in-house, and their lemon and poppy seed drizzle cake and raspberry and white chocolate muffins are much admired.
This beautiful 17th-century merchant’s house is a hidden gem in London, a place of unique charm and ambience.
Lady Binning bought the house in 1936 and filled it with her highly decorative collections of porcelain, Georgian furniture and 17th-century needlework.
The sound of early keyboard instruments and the colours of early 20th-century drawings and paintings add to a captivating experience.