The long-awaited London Museum has finally revealed its opening date. The London Museum will be a treasure trove of more than 7 million objects showcasing the city’s rich history.
We’ll give you three goes at guessing what the London Museum will be dedicated to when it finally opens its doors later this year. Joking, obvs – the hotly anticipated cultural centre, home to a 7-million-item-strong collection, will, of course, be a treasure-trove of artifacts, historical objects and exhibitions celebrating the Big Smoke in all her glory.
The London Museum is the shiny new (and somewhat hard to Google) rebrand of the former Museum of London, which waved goodbye to its OG site at London Wall in 2022. Work on its glitzy new digs in Smithfield Market has been underway in the years since, and the museum has now finally announced its official opening day. Relaunching in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary, The London Museum’s new free permanent galleries will open in Smithfield on November 28, 2026.
The £437m revamp project, a partnership between the City of London Corporation and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, marks the culmination of a decade-long transformation of Smithfield’s historic General Market, which is returning to public use for the first time in over 30 years.
What to Expect at the London Museum
The London Museum will be made up of three interconnected spaces. Visitors will enter via Real Time, a covered former street that acts as the museum’s main entrance. From there, the space will shift into Our Time, a central space with 13 installations, a restaurant, shop and show area, all set beneath the Lindley Hall market’s newly restored dome.
This section of the museum has been designed as a hub for events and activities, and the schedule is already choc-a-block with fun things to do. Each week, the museum will be running Tuesday Tea Club, featuring free hot brews from Syd’s Coffee Stall, which joined the museum’s collection in 2019 after 100 years of trading in Shoreditch. We can also expect after hours DJ sets on Friday and Saturday nights, a House Party event hosted on the first Saturday of each month in partnership with nightclub Fabric, and a monthly themed Dinner Club featuring food from some of the city’s best chefs.
The London Museum’s third space, Past Time, will be located below ground. Its cavernous subterranean galleries will feature permanent thematic and chronological displays giving an overview of London’s storied history. Among the artifacts you’ll be able to come face-to-face with Banksy’s Piranhas artwork, Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst’s hunger strike medal and even a chunk of the famed Whitechapel Fatberg. For the first six months, the vest believed to have been worn by King Charles I at his execution will also be on display.
Exhibition Programmes and Collaborations
Exhibition and events programmes will be designed in collaboration with a rotating roster of guest editors. The inaugural programme - London Tastes – will be co-curated by British baker and former Great British Bake Off contestant Ruby Tandoh with writer Jonathan Nunn. Running until August 2027, the foodie-focused show will tuck into London’s ever-evolving food scene, from trad pie and mash cafes and chicken shops to the history of iconic culinary hubs like Covent Garden and Brick Lane.
Following the London Museum’s reopening in 2026, the adjacent Poultry Market will open in 2028, expanding the museum with two temporary exhibition spaces, a dedicated learning centre and a collections store.
