Three Cheers for the British Museum

Today, marks the 250th birthday of the British Museum.

Established by Act of Parliament in 1753, the Museum’s initial exhibits consisted of three private collections. The most significant of these had belonged to the physician and collector of antiquities, Sir Hans Sloane. Sadly, Sloane died that year. He left his vast collection of almost 80,000 items - excluding his personal library - to the nation and Montagu House, in Great Russell Street was earmarked to house it. The British Museum funded by public lottery opened 250 years ago.

The opening of the British Museum (and of Kew Gardens in the same year) are both examples of great civic collections that pride themselves on allowing access for all.

Karl Marx, Virginia Wolf and Thomas Carlyle are among the famous scholars to have studied in the Museum's magnificent Reading Room. The Reading Room was renovated in the final years of the twentieth century and Sir Norman Foster designed the magnificent Great Court (pictured above), which now encases it. The Great Court opened in 2000.

Independent minded travellers can hear about the rich history of the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, the British Museum and much more with London Tour 4: The Museums, Galleries & Performing Arts, Walk Talk Tour, London travel guide.

Hear about some of the movies which have been partly filmed in the British Museum, hear about Covent Garden's chequered past, find out who the Blind Beak was and much, much more. To hear an audio sample from the Museums, Galleries & Performing Arts mp3 guided tour please click here.

Entry to the British Museum is free - though visitors may have to pay and book in advance for some temporary exhibitions. For more information about the admission charges and opening times of key attractions along the route of the tour please click here.

Each of the five Walk Talk Tour, London audio downloadable guides costs just £5.95. Purchase two mp3 guided tours simultaneously and receive a twenty per cent discount. Buy three at the same time and get thirty per cent off.

Don't let a tour guide spoil your break. Listeners with a Walk Talk Tour can go at their own pace, stopping, starting and listening again to their commentary as they wish - not as someone else dictates.