Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection is a free museum in Hertford House, a Marylebone townhouse on Manchester Square, holding one of the finest collections of French 18th-century art, porcelain, furniture, and old master paintings in the world. Frans Hals’ The Laughing Cavalier, Fragonard’s The Swing, and a world-class arms and armoury display are all here, and general admission is free. Budget travellers walk in for nothing and see a personal aristocratic art collection that rivals many national museums.

The collection was bequeathed to the nation in 1897 by Lady Wallace, on the condition that it stay together as one and never be lent out, so the rooms are unusually settled: what hangs here now has hung here for over a century. That permanence is part of the appeal, and it means the visit never depends on a touring blockbuster with a ticket price.

The setting helps too. Because it occupies a townhouse rather than a purpose-built gallery, the Wallace feels more like wandering a grand private home than a museum, and the glass-roofed central courtyard restaurant is one of the most elegant free-entry spaces in London even if the food itself is paid.

It sits a short walk north of Oxford Street, which makes it easy to fold into a no-cost day around central London’s other free national museums. Pair it with the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery on Trafalgar Square, or with the British Museum a little to the east, and a full day of world-class art costs only transport.