Museum of London
A fairly young museum for such an ancient city. Built on the old Roman Wall, in the City of London, not to be confused with larger London. Only around for about 20 years, this has the largest urban collection of 6 million items, in the world.
The Arrival - St. Paul Tube Station
The Museum of London is a fairly young museum for such an ancient city. It's built on the old Roman Wall in the City of London, not to be confused with the larger London metropolitan area. Despite being around for only about 50 years, this has the largest urban collection in the world with 6 million items.
The Arrival - St. Paul Tube Station
Arriving in the heart of The City, as it seems only proper to do so. I walked north a couple blocks from Saint Paul's Cathedral and over some pedestrian bridges to the museum.
Origin
How old do you think London is? 2,000 years? Well, that's a bit off. It has been a center of habitation for around 45,000 years. Stick that in your hat, Rome.
Then, the locals discovered metal vs. stone. The Bronze Age was not a joke here.
Of course London hit the world stage with the Romans, and they invested heavily with money and men in England ensuring their spot for hundreds of years.
Next came the dark or middle ages, and were they ever dark. It was a time of disease, squalor and a rollback of civilization.
Things started looking up in the 1200s, and the city grew immensely until 1668, the year of the great fire which leveled the city.
The city regrew and as it became a huge center of population, then pressures of the times began to impact the lower classes and the government was too busy with the rich to keep up.
London is probably most famous for the Victorian time period, when culture and refinement was directed from the top down.
And this rolled nicely into WW1 and the Suffrage movement, which was surprisingly violent.
The city was heavily hit in WW2, but there is very little of that represented in the museum. Then onto the Modern (Mod baby!) era, and we have traversed the collections.
Summary
Located within the old city of London, close to a very unfortunate section called the Barbican, this is the bright spot in the area. Takes a couple hours easy to visit this museum. Weekdays are filled with school groups, but it's really cool and so much actual history.
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