Wellcome Collection

The lowdown

Wellcome Collection grew out of one man's enormous and slightly mad hoard. Henry Wellcome was a pharma millionaire who collected anything to do with the human body, and what he left behind is now a free museum about medicine, life and what it is to be a person. It is clever, strange and not remotely stuffy.

The permanent galleries are the draw. Being Human looks at bodies, illness and identity in a thoroughly modern way, and the older Medicine Man room is full of genuinely odd objects, Napoleon's toothbrush, ancient surgical tools, shrunken heads, the lot. The temporary shows upstairs are some of the most thoughtful free exhibitions in London.

Then there is the Reading Room, a spiral of books, sofas and curiosities you are free to sit in all day. Nobody minds if you read, work or just stare out of the window. Add the cafe and the excellent shop and you have a whole free afternoon two minutes from a mainline station.