Bloomsbury & Holborn
Georgian squares, university buildings and second-hand bookshops wrapped around the British Museum. The most bookish square mile in London — all the history of Soho with none of the crowds, and a run of genuinely good small restaurants nobody queues for.
Who it's for: Museum people — the British Museum, Soane's, the Wellcome and the Dickens house are all within twenty minutes' walk and three of the four are free. Readers and browsers. Anyone who wants central London without the West End crush.
Things to know
- The British Museum is free but you should book a free timed ticket — walk-up entry exists but isn't guaranteed, and at weekends the queue is real.
- Friday is the day: the British Museum stays open until 8:30pm and after 6pm the Egyptian galleries are transformed. Tuesday to Thursday mornings are the other quiet window.
- Sir John Soane's Museum is free but requires a timed ticket, is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and caps numbers because the house is small. Book it before you arrive in London, not on the day.
- Three of the four major museums here — British Museum, Soane's and the Wellcome Collection — are free. Only the Charles Dickens Museum charges.
- Lamb's Conduit Street is the neighbourhood's spine for eating and drinking: independent shops, Noble Rot, Ciao Bella and The Lamb all within two hundred metres.
- The Georgian squares are open to the public and free to sit in. Russell Square has a café and a fountain children play in; Bedford Square is the most architecturally intact and is usually empty.
- Restaurants here take bookings and rarely have queues, which after Soho and Borough is a considerable relief.
- Holborn and Russell Square Tube stations bracket the district, but almost everything is a ten-minute walk from Tottenham Court Road.