London is packed with world-famous institutions, from the fossil-packed Natural History Museum to textiles and treasures at the V&A. But there are many smaller museums besides, and they offer up shelves of fascinating curios, or take a deep dive into a peculiar aspect of culture or history. Here are 14 of our favourites.

Just a few minutes from King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, this museum has a peaceful location on the Regent’s Canal waterfront. It’s set in a historic warehouse building previously owned by an Italian entrepreneur called Carlo Gatti, who used the premises to store ice – he arrived in the UK penniless and made his fortune partly by importing ice from Norway into Victorian England, to be used by fishmongers and hospitals.

The museum also tells the colourful story of London’s canals, which were initially designed to transport materials and other commodities into towns and cities from the docks. Visitors also have the chance to squeeze inside a tiny narrowboat cabin, which entire families lived in with few necessities, making a meagre living carrying goods. It was a way of life that continued until the early 1960s.

The Fan Museum in Greenwich claims to be the only establishment of its kind to celebrate the art of the fan and the craft of fan-making. There are more than 3,500 fans in its collection, housed in two beautifully renovated and listed Georgian buildings, dating from 1721. Most of them are antiques from around the world, dating from as early as the 11th century.

The museum tells the history of the fan as a practical and decorative object, and items are displayed alongside period costumes and fan-making tools, plus catalogues and rare books from the relevant era. Some of them belong to the founder, Hélene Alexander, while others have been donated or sourced. Collection highlights include fans decorated by fine artists such as Paul Gauguin; a rare Elizabethan-period fan; Japanese court fans and one by Russian jewellery company, Fabergé, incorporating gold work and enamelling.

University College London (UCL) campus is the setting for this odd and old natural history museum that celebrates animal anatomy. The collection consists of over 62,000 specimens and is gathered in a small room that resembles the attic of an obsessive collector.

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It was founded in 1827 by Robert Grant, known as the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in England, who set up his department at UCL. Exhibits seem to be either gruesome, terrifying, or obscure. For example, there’s a skeleton of a 550lb (250kg) anaconda, a box of dodo bones and a jar stuffed with 18 preserved moles.

Once upon a time, ordinary household products like shoe polish and cough syrup came in ornate jars and dainty decanters. A visit to the Museum of Brands takes you on a visual time-travelling deep dive into Britain’s consumer and social history over the past two decades – in no less than half a million objects, collected by consumer historian Robert Opie. 

Everything – from toys, cleaning products, sweets, Victoriana and memorabilia – is here and arranged by decade. There are even souvenirs from the Great Exhibition of 1851; 1950s kitsch, including lots of Formica products; and wind-up gramophones. You’ll learn graphic design histories, particularly in relation to British products, such as Cadbury’s chocolate, Colman’s mustard and Kellogg’s All-Bran.

In his hit novels, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle housed his famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, at 221B Baker Street from 1881 to 1904. Today, a similar four-storey Georgian London townhouse, albeit four doors down, has been turned into a museum celebrating the life and stories of ‘the world’s first consulting detective’.

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It’s more of an attraction than a museum in that there’s little information about the author or character himself – but it nevertheless promises an immersive experience. A cheery London policeman greets you at the door before guides in period costume show you in and direct you on your self-guided tour. This takes you through richly decorated rooms filled with authentic Victorian furniture and curiosities, with references to the novels. There’s even the opportunity to sit in Holmes’s armchair in front of a roaring fire and peruse his papers wearing a deerstalker hat.

At the bottom of a gold spiral staircase in a musty Hackney basement is a collection of curiosities not for the faint of heart. Most objects are labelled in spidery black writing by Viktor Wynd, the collector and curator of this ‘wunderkabinett’ and host of masquerade balls and literary salons. It’s a tiny space that claims to ‘present an incoherent vision of the world...no attempt is made at classification and comprehensiveness’.

To set the scene: there’s a two-headed kitten and a two-headed calf, a mummified pygmy, glass cabinets crammed with erotica, taxidermy peering from the walls and strange-looking pickled things in jars. Wynd also welcomes donations, if you’ve anything macabre, creepy, shocking or ridiculous you think might fit in. Take it all in at the bar upstairs over a cup of tea, or an absinthe cocktail if you dare, while overlooked by skeletons, skulls and stuffed animals.

Sir John Soane was born in 1753 and became a prominent architect of his day. He designed the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Bank of England in London, and many other buildings so wildly eccentric that they remained unbuilt. He also became a big collector of art and antiquities. To accommodate his growing collection of treasures, he knocked three houses into one overlooking Lincoln’s Inn Fields in the City of London.

Stepping inside is like walking into a Victorian magpie’s nest. There are pieces of stained glass, watches and clocks, gems and statues. A highlight is seeing behind secret panels, pushed open by white-gloved guides, hiding collections of art including masterpieces by Joseph Mallord William Turner and William Hogarth. When Soane died, he bequeathed his incredible home to the nation to be turned into a museum. For a novel way to enjoy it, turn up on the first Tuesday of any month and you can experience it by candlelight.

Surprisingly, The Cinema Museum is set in a former Lambeth workhouse, where nine-year-old Charlie Chaplin and his half-brother Sydney were ‘processed’ in 1896. Today, it’s home to one of the world’s most extensive collections of film-related images and artefacts, which tell the story of cinema from the 1890s to the present.

Wandering around this small space you’ll find everything from stills and posters, cinema seats and signs, to projectors and other machinery. The early days of cinema in particular are brought to life. There are silent film scores and even a 1917 ticket machine that issues metal tokens of various shapes, so ushers could feel the difference in the dark. The Cinema Museum hosts regular film nights and talks to raise funds too.

Who knew a museum about delivering letters could be so interesting? The Postal Museum delves into the history of what’s dubbed the ‘first social network’ through a series of interactive galleries. Stealing the show is the immersive 20-minute subterranean train ride along a hidden network of tunnels on the forgotten Mail Rail located opposite the museum.

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The two-foot (0.6m) narrow gauge, miniature driverless underground railway was originally called the Post Office Railway. It was built 100 years ago and stretched 6.5 miles (10km) between Paddington and Whitechapel and was used to transport mail between sorting offices 22 hours a day, seven days a week. Travelling through the once-abandoned tunnels deep below Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant sorting office, you’ll see station platforms almost exactly as they were. Hearing the stories of people who worked on it brings it all to life.

Browsing all the random items in glass jars at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, you’ll feel as though you’ve stepped into a Frankenstein movie. This gruesome collection of anatomy and pathology specimens once belonged to eminent 18th-century surgeon John Hunter. He started out as an assistant in anatomy, had a special talent for dissection and developed new treatments for common ailments such as gunshot wounds.

Hunter was an avid collector, eventually amassing over 65,000 specimens – the government bought it in 1799 and it became part of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons when it opened. Around 3,500 specimens from the original collection are on display. The museum is a weird treasure trove of skeletons, bones, skulls, teeth, strange wax teaching models, historic surgical and dental instruments, paintings, drawings and sculptures.  

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In the eaves of St Thomas’s Church, on the site of the original St Thomas’s Hospital near London Bridge Station, is the country’s oldest surviving operating theatre. It dates to 1822 and was discovered by chance during repair work. It’s the last remnant of Old St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, once shared with Guy’s Hospital. Today, it’s been refurbished and features a museum about the history of medicine, pre-anaesthetic and antiseptic surgery.

Looking down at the operating table is a humbling experience – particularly after browsing the toe-curling collection of surgical instruments and illustrations of amputations. The section filled with baskets and bowls of fragrant dried herbs and flowers is a welcome relief. The hospital apothecary once used the attic space for drying herbs like liquorice and there’s a Victorian recreation.

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One of the world’s earliest police forces was established in London in 1798. Called the Thames River Police, they were hired by wealthy merchants to protect their cargo and stores from river pirates. They still operate today as the Marine Support Unit from the original police station on Wapping High Street. Here, a small workshop originally used by a boat-repairing carpenter has been turned into a museum celebrating its history and heritage. 

The museum is tiny but packs in an impressive collection of handcuffs, uniforms, telescopes and rattles, which were used before whistles to sound the alarm. It’s interesting to read the dusty ledgers with beautifully handwritten details of everyday crimes. As the museum is located in a working police station, visits must be arranged by prior appointment. To do this, you must send a written request and a stamped addressed envelope to the police station and wait for permission.

This tiny collection tells the story of the esteemed father and son engineering legends, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his less well-known father, Marc Isambard Brunel. It focuses on the 35-foot (11m) long Thames Tunnel, the only project they worked on together. Built between 1825 and 1843, it runs under the Thames from Rotherhithe to Wapping and was initially designed to carry horse-drawn carriages until the money dried up and it became a pedestrian footpath. 

It took an incredible 18 years to build and upon its completion people referred to it as ‘the eighth wonder of the world’. The museum itself is set in the Engine House, which once housed steam-powered pumps used to extract water from the tunnel. Don’t miss the Grand Entrance Hall, where acrobats and tight-rope walkers once impressed onlookers.

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The Magic Circle was founded in 1905 to promote the art of magic and protect its secrets. Apparently, their 1,500 members take their motto, Indocilis Privata Loqui – not apt to disclose secrets – seriously. To get into its museum you need to buy a ticket for a Magic Circle public event, most of which are magic shows and take place in the upstairs theatre. It’s worth it as most feature the best magicians in Britain. 

Once in, you’ll need to head to the basement to find the museum. It’s packed with goodies such as the shoes British magician Dynamo wore to walk across the Thames without a bridge; the original Marauder’s Map from the Harry Potter films; and plenty of tools of the trade, like magic props and vintage posters. It’s also home to a beautiful floating spiral staircase that runs through the building.

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