About the British Museum

The Great Court © The Trustees of the British Museum

Spanning two million years of human history and housed in one of Britain's architectural landmarks, the British Museum’s collections of art and antiquities from ancient and living cultures are some of the finest in existence. And they can all be visited for free.

Since its foundation in 1753, the museum has been guided by three important principles:

• the collections are to be held in perpetuity in their entirety
• they are to be made widely available to all who seek to enjoy and learn from them
• they are to be cared for by full-time specialists.

It’s not only the collections inside the British Museum that are important. It’s also one of the most visited public buildings in London, contributing to its cultural and economic life. It includes the capital’s largest covered public square, the Great Court, which has changed the face of Bloomsbury as a cultural quarter.

The British Museum’s treasures create a context in which cultures can be seen, experienced and studied in depth or compared and contrasted across time and space. They inspire and delight more than five million visitors a year.

Discover more about this wonderful institution ...

• Visiting the British Museum
• Becoming a curator
• Volunteering at the British Museum
• Supporting the British Museum

And you can experience the British Museum online by exploring its own website and EXPLORE, the museum’s database of some 5,000 objects selected from its fabulous collections.

Channel 4 takes no responsibility for the content of third-party sites.

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