National Portrait Gallery
Portraits of the people who shaped Britain, free just off Trafalgar Square, reborn after a three-year revamp.
FREE
The lowdown
The National Portrait Gallery is the nation's family album, a building full of the faces behind the history. Henry the Eighth and his doomed wives, the Brontës, Shakespeare, Bowie, Stormzy, all hung in one free collection tucked just behind Trafalgar Square.
It reopened in 2023 after a three-year overhaul and it has never looked better. A new entrance, reordered galleries and a top-floor café with a cracking view down Whitehall, none of which costs a thing to walk into.
It is the perfect pairing with the National Gallery next door, the art in one and the people in the other. Do them both in a morning and you have seen the best of British painting and the best of British faces for the grand total of nothing.
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