London Transport Museum

The London Transport Museum seems to have taken a hint from its name, having been relocated to several different venues in London over the years. Originating in the 1920s, This illustrious museum started with an exhibit featuring just two Victorian horse buses and an early motor bus.

The original museum – part of The Museum of British Transport – was housed in an old bus garage in south London before moving to Syon Park in West London. By 1980, the museum had moved to its present-day location at the Victorian Flower Market building in Covent Garden. Designed by William Rogers in 1871, the building was the center of the city’s flower business for a century.

After the Flower Market moved and the old market buildings were restored, the transport museum moved in with its collection featuring buses, trams, trolleys, photographs and engineering drawings – 450,000 items in total – all of which serve to tell the history of London’s transport system over the last 200 years.

Many items within the collection are also housed in the museum’s depot. Located in Acton, West London, this depot provides ample storage space that allows for the showing of larger vehicles. In total, over 370,000 items are are on display there.

In 2005, the London Transport Museum underwent a major redesign that preserved the architecture of the Victorian Flower Market Building, but infused a contemporary aesthetic into the interior. Due to environmental improvements of this redesign, many of the museum’s historic photographs and artworks could now be displayed publicly. Open every day, visitors are welcome explore the museum’s vast collection, including the 1938 restored tube carriage pictured above.