At the same time, the Government of the day set up a Science & Art Department which established the South Kensington Museum in 1857, from which the Science Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum have developed. These two museums had grown so large and so diverse that they were separated formally in 1909 and a new building to house the Science Museum was formally opened by King George V in 1928.

peak of the Industrial Revolution. It is hard to believe that the present building was not the most impressive designed a change of government soon after the original design was completed led to the possibility of a new, stunning building that would have followed the waterline of the Thames south bank in a gentle curve. However, the original plan was revived and work began in 1873 and finished 7 years later. In the process, several practical

Its buildings gradually grew from the rear of the site towards the road. The final stage was the new four-storey building along Cromwell Road and Exhibition Road. Designed by Aston Webb, this was built between 1899 and 1909. The facade is decorated with thirty-two sculptures of great English artists, architects and craftsmen. The Victoria & Albert Museum is the greatest museum of applied and decorative arts in the world. Explore the breathtaking permanent collections from the four corners of the globe including fashion and textiles, sculpture, ceramics and glass, metalwork, silver and jewellery, furniture, photography and paintings. Don't miss the British Galeries 1500-1900, telling the story of British design and art from the Tudor period to the Victorian Age.

The British Museum is best known for its exhibits of aspects of the ancient cultures of Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire and the current special exhibition concentrating on Japan as well, of course, for its huge Reading Room. The Museum is located in Great Russell Street, in Bloomsbury, and lies between the end of Oxford Street and Russell Square. Opening hours are normally 10.00am to 5.30p.m. but the Museum stays open later to 8.30pm on Thursday and Friday.

The RAF Museum was opened in November 1972 by Her Majesty The Queen. The Museum stands on 15 acres of the historic former Hendon Aerodrome at RAF Hendon, one of the oldest aviation centres in the country. It was home to the famous Hendon Air Displays and RAF Pageants of the 1920s and ' 30s and the airfield was used as a fighter station during the Battle of Britain and then a transport station for the remainder of World War II. Hendon is in the north of London and the RAF Museum is easily reached from the M! Junction 4 – a short drive from the A406 – and has its own large free car park.

There are antique toys that still work, models of those that don't, miniature cars, trains and aeroplanes and even a miniature funfair from the 1920s. And for the more sentimental, there are teddy bears galore. For the more curious, there is a large model of a coal mine, which had working parts with trucks going back and forth. In other rooms on 5 floors, on display are many toys of yesteryear right up to date, sections on Action Man and Aeroplanes etc, in one room there is a working fairground. With the aid of some money of course, there is even some one arm bandits of old too.

The wars of the twentieth century have affected each and every one of us in some way, and the Museum is here to tell all our stories. We cover all aspects of life in wartime - heroes, villains and the millions who are neither - and all human experience, at home and on the battlefield. The Imperial War Museum main building is located in Lambeth Road, close to Waterloo Station but the Museums exhibits include other fascinating parts, such as the Cabinet War Rooms, under Whitehall, near Downing Street and H.M.S. Belfast,