London teems with incredible, life-affirming museums and cultural institutions. It also is home to some decidedly irregular ones, which are equally worthy of attention.
The Hunterian
Best avoided by the squeamish, the Hunterian — named for the 18th century surgeon John Hunter — is a catalogue of anatomical specimens. It is decidedly eerie: shelves are lined with things like dissected toads and squashed skulls, and skeletons are everywhere. There are severed, cartoonish feet, coiled intestines. It is macabre, but tells the fascinating story of how doctors and scientists came to understand so much about both mankind and the natural world.
The Royal College of Surgeons, WC2A, hunterianmuseum.org
London sewing machine museum
It is Balham, somewhat confusingly, that is home to Wimbledon Sewing Machines, a sewing machine shop and repair centre. Head up one flight of stairs from it and there is this museum, a red-carpeted room home to more than 600 machines from the early 1800s to the present day. The place is dressed like a theatre set, with furniture and props period appropriate to the machines, so the sense is one of travelling through time.
292-312 Balham High Road, SW17, craftysewer.com
Museum of Freemasonry
Ah, the Freemasons, that shadowy sect — definitely, definitely not a cult — that thrive behind closed walls in the corridors of power, changing the course history to suit its whims. Or, at least, that’s what used to happen, until the 1990s came along and all the air was let out of its influence. Regardless, this fascinating museum, first opened in 1838, tells the Masonic story, aided by, appropriately enough, cloaks and daggers.
60 Great Queen Street, WC2B, museumfreemasonry.org.uk
