Disraeli's former residence now in the care of the National Trust. Lots of information about the…read moregreat 19th Century statesman, quite a few rooms to explore, a cafe is available, and there are gardens and grounds to expore as well, the gardens are very well maintained with lovely flower displays in summer.

I highly recommend this place…read more Despite the look of this stores website - which looks high end and expensive - this aquarium store is great and is not that expensive. I recently purchase an aquarium, the necessary paraphernalia and (after having cycled my tank off course) a red and white fantail goldfish (called "Mo"). The staff were really really nice and very helpful...I cannot rave about it enough. They have lots of choice too (fish / plant / tank etc).

So! What's an American to do when he wants to buy H2Ocean's Reef Paste that's not sold in the…read morestates? He goes to the source, of course! While prices for us Yanks are expensive everywhere in London, this place is no exception. HOWEVER, the customer service is EXCELLENT!!! The fish & corals ALL look healthy & happy, & I've been reefing for years! As online stores take over, retails stores dwindle. It's even happening in the States. That's why it's so important to support your local store so they can stay in business!! Thanks to all of the staff at ADC, for being so kind & patient with me!! If I could, I'd bring home the baby boxfish today. No really, I would!! Have you seen him? Well, hurry up & get in there before someone buys him!

Visited the museum while in Oxford for the day. Lots of history and neat exhibits to visit. We…read moresaw insects, fossils and tons of other things, almost too many to list. The day of our visit, there were a few schools visiting but everyone we encountered from the staff to the young preschool students were friendly and considerate. Definitely worth a visit if you're in Oxford.

A museum of natural history would generally be on my list of "museums I don't wish to visit" but…read morethe Oxford Museum of Natural History proved that I barely know myself. First, it's free of charge which automatically makes it attractive. But though free may get me in the door it won't guarantee I'll enjoy it. This museum isn't just free but it is also gorgeous and interesting, a real home run. And, in the event that Natural History isn't your jam even here, this place contains the portal to the almost indescribable Pitt Rivers Museum (also free). One of these is bound to be your happy place.

This is a wonderful quirky space. Like the attic of your eccentric uncle who travelled widely,…read morebrought back whatever he could carry, then carefully catalogued everything (idiosyncratically) and then left it for you to go through--that is, if your uncle was the entirety of the British empire. Can't say enough. You can spend days here and still be saying "did you see THAT?"

We had a great time exploring the Pitt Rivers Museum! There is SO much on display it's almost hard…read moreto take it all in. If you're an anthropology buff, this is your place. So many neat things to see and everything you can imagine, too many to list. From clothing to masks to weapons to toys all from different cultures and different times. We even saw a Totem Pole! Overall a fascinating place to visit, just wish we'd had more time to explore!

What an amazing place! We happened to see this museum as we…read morewere walking by and were intrigued by their moving signage. Inside there are plenty of machines that whir and perform small tasks or even make music. Lots of interactive things to see and do, buttons to push, pedals to press, even a magnetic marble track you can build yourself! It's a treat for young and old and definitely worth the small entry fee.

The opening hours are stated for October to March. Opening hours from April to September are a…read morelittle longer (10:30 to 18:30 daily). A friend recommended this place to me thinking that my boys would like it. My friend was right! We did all enjoy the interactive displays. The extent of the interactivity is mainly pressing a button though but it's still good. There is an interesting range of mechanical art and my boys and I were fascinated by the mechanisms. It is quite a small place. It cost £19 for the four of us (2 adults and 2 children) which isn't too bad but, considering we spent less than an hour in there and saw everything, it does seem a little expensive. There are two floors. One very small room on each floor displaying different pieces of art. It can get rather crowded due to the small size, especially downstairs where the entrance/exit is the same. In the same small area, there is a counter where there is a single member of staff who both admits people and serves the gift shop. The gift shop is basically a small portion of the wall within the ground floor of the museum. Many items are over-priced and the selection is very limited. We did enjoy ourselves there and would recommend it but it could get claustrophobic and the upstairs can be noisy (although it does state this on the signage).

Big! Giant! Huge Collection! I think that describes this museum. Be prepared to spend at least half…read moreday here. For fast pace like me, it takes us 3 hours. This museum need reservations ahead of time. It is free to public. The museum is popular, if you try to get in at the day arrive, you have to hope not many reserve the ticket. The museum has a lot room with different regions in the world. Many of the collection even the host country doesn't have it. The Egypt collection includes the many types of mummies. This collection not even the Egypt has it. The entrance basically enter to the round section that connected to the different room. You may need a good leg to walk entire museum. They also have folding chairs that you can use and portable to open at the display.

It's not every museum that has a line wrapped around the building when it opens on a Monday…read moremorning. But the British Museum is the world's oldest public national museum, has the largest collection of artifacts of any museum in the world, and is the second most visited attraction in all of the United Kingdom. The museum is free to visit, but we reserved a timed entry ticket for when they opened on Monday morning. I suggest you do this, because people who had tickets were walking right through into the museum after a bag check, while people who had not bought tickets ahead of time were having to wait in another line to get in. The museum is so large and has so many artifacts, that it can be a little overwhelming. For that reason, we relied on the list of highlights of the museum to point us to certain artifacts we didn't want to miss: the Rosetta Stone; the colossal bust of Ramesses II (c. 1250 BC); Hoa Hakananai'a (basalt statue from Easter Island); the Ife head (Nigeria, ca. 1300-1400s); the Sutton Hoo ship burial (dating back to 7th century Britain); the Lewish Chessmen (Scottish, ca. 1150-1175); and more. Prepare for crowds and to be a little overwhelmed by people and artifacts and the size of the museum. If you want to see everything, be prepared to spend an entire in the museum. Since it's free, you can do as we did and just spend a couple of hours - that's all we had - and see what you can see (the highlights list helped)! But it's a great museum and easily one of the most important museums in the country.

I visited this house a few years ago which was only a few miles from my high school in…read moreHertfordshire and realized its historical significance. This was the house where Mary I, Elizabeth I and Edward VI were raised. London in Henry VIII's time was riddled with disease such as typhoid, cholera and smallpox, hardly a place fit for little royals where childhood mortality was common. King Henry VIII choose Hatfield house for its proximity to London but far away enough from its scourge. Located in the North Downs, you could see the Thames and from London, you could see Hatfield House. Henry could signal his intention to visit his children and the royal household at Hatfield would make preparations to cater for his arrival with his royal entourage. The journey on horse from London to Hatfield would take a day by the way of Saint Johns Wood. Now you could get to Hatfield from Central London in probably an hour. On a clear day you should be able to see the London Eye from Hatfield if you know what you are looking for. This house was a crucial incubator of the protestant faith. King Henry had the best scholars of the time to instruct his children so that they can continue their reign as protestants. Without Elizabeth I being a strong protestant, England might have kept the Catholic faith as the country's religion. Her eldest sister Queen Mary reinstated Catholicism as the faith of the land when she reigned after the death of Edward VI and the brief reign of Jane Earl Grey. It was reverted to the Church of England when Elizabeth I became Queen. So, if you are ever within spitting distance of this place you should try and see it.

Hatfield House is a lovely day out from London. It is about a 25 minute train ride north of London…read more Hatfield House is the family home of the Marquess of Salisbury, and was built by Robert Cecil (Chief Minister to James I, and son of William Cecil) from 1607-1611. The house is gorgeous, and has loads of beautiful furniture and art. Also on site is Old Hatfield Palace, where Elizabeth I spent much of her childhood. Elizabeth was out on the grounds at Hatfield when she learned that she was now queen, following the death of her sister Mary. Hatfield has somewhat limited opening hours, and is closed (except for the grounds and for special events) during the winter. Check the website (great info) for details. I recommend going at the weekend: during the week you must take a guided tour of the home. The guide was knowledgable and entertaining, but we had to keep moving ahead of the group behind us, so did not have time to savor all of the wonderful things about Hatfield. I will definitely go back.

We were in London during a heat wave and decided a museum day was in order, to entertain our…read morechildren away from the scorching sun. We settled on the Natural History Museum, and by the time we realized it would provide but faint relief, it was too late to go somewhere else. The Natural History Museum is one of London's spectacular free museums, a beautiful building on Exhibition Road in South Kensington. We were not, apparently, the only family who decided to visit on this hot Thursday afternoon in July, and we ended up waiting in a long, slow line, completely exposed to the sun. They might have put up some umbrellas, but I guess the weather was atypical. Once we were in, we learned that the museum is an old, historic building without much in the way of air conditioning. It was crowded and steamy in there, though still preferable to being outside. There were also a few newer exhibition halls that had proper AC. Thankfully, my three-year-old has a lifelong fascination with fans, and there were dozens of these on display, giant machines designed to ventilate large spaces. He was, in fact, more into these than he was into the dinosaurs, which scared the bejeezus out of him. The museum was definitely top tier, with tons of interesting exhibits to entertain both children and adults. We entered right into Hintze Hall, where a full blue whale skeleton hung suspended over our heads. We also admired a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, dating back to the beginning of our solar system. The dinosaur hall was excellent, even if the animatronic T-rex made my little boy cry. We fell prey to one of the photo op stops, and I definitely paid for the downloads like a sucker--what, was I not gonna own the silly green screen pictures of my family among dinosaurs, and more importantly, looking at a camera at the same time? The mammal hall was cool, though I have to say, I missed the grand diorama displays of the mammal halls I've seen back home. We went into a newer exhibit on how to fix our broken planet, mostly for the air conditioning. My kids were less into the conservation stuff than the dinosaurs and fans, but I thought it was quite well done. I actually stopped buying beef treats for my dog as a result of one of the placards, which talked about the impact on the planet of using beef for pet food. We went to two gift shops, the one by the dinosaur hall and the main one near the entrance, and both were quite nice, with lots to look at for our kids. We allowed them to buy stuffies, and our three-year-old bought a tiny dodo and a tiny ankylosaurus (on theme, good job), while our six-year-old bought a flamingo to add to his flamingo collection. If there was a flamingo display at the museum, we missed it, though I suppose I wouldn't be surprised. I can tell by looking at the map now that we missed plenty. We spent a little time in the cafe, for fans and beverages, and I realized as we were leaving that I'd left my sunglasses there over an hour earlier. I was pleasantly surprised to find it at the register waiting for me. We take the kids to natural history museums at home, and I have no doubt we'd make good use of this one if we were raising them nearby. It's a wonderful place, expansive and educational, a truly amazing free resource to anyone spending time in London.

Lots of bones! Plenty of old stuff! Great turn-of-the-century over-the-top ornate architecture!…read morePlan on an hour unless you're hardcore. Ride the escalator into the middle of the earth to find out what music is playing inside. See extraordinary taxidermy handiwork. Even see a fake dodo bird thought to be an adjacent species that didn't exist. And if you like dinosaurs this is your Mecca. Just don't dare sit anywhere like on some stairs in the corner or some overzealous guard will kick you right out. But otherwise you'll have a great time. Also enjoy the outside grounds for a stroll, and hit up the West entrance for zero lines while the hoards line up on the other side.