Engine and boiler rooms
The deepest and most affecting part of the ship: steel walkways between boilers where men worked in stifling heat.
Images George Rex from London, England — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Royal Navy official photographer — Public domain · Ronnie Macdonald — CC BY 2.0 · Ryan Hodnett — CC BY-SA 4.0
The forward guns of this cruiser moored on the Thames are trained, deliberately, on a motorway service station some twenty kilometres north of London; the museum's way of showing you what six-inch guns can reach. It is a joke earned by a ship that spent its working life in earnest. Launched in Belfast in 1938, she nearly had her back broken by a magnetic mine in the first months of the Second World War, came back after nearly three years of repairs to escort the Arctic convoys to Russia, helped sink the German battleship Scharnhorst in December 1943, shelled the Normandy beaches on the morning of D-Day, and later served through the Korean War. Since 1971 she has sat between London Bridge and Tower Bridge as a museum ship, run since 1978 by the Imperial War Museum. What separates her from every other naval museum is that you do not look at the ship, you live inside it. Nine decks are open: gun turrets you actually climb into, the bridge, the engine and boiler rooms deep in the hull where the heat was stifling, mess decks with hammocks slung, the galley, the sick bay, the operations room with its plotting charts, even the bakery, the laundry and the ship's chapel. The audio guide is included in the ticket, and the sound-and-light sequence in the forward turret makes clear what it was to work a gun under fire. Give it ninety minutes to two hours, three if someone in the party loves military detail. The one serious caveat concerns families. Near-vertical steel ladders and narrow passages are the experience, pushchairs are allowed only on the open exterior decks, and wheelchair users can reach the main deck and the café but nothing below them. Children of seven and up usually adore the place; under-fives get in free but the ship is exhausting for whoever carries them. In winter the exposed sections close when rain or wind gets up, and the upper deck is bitterly cold. The nearest station is London Bridge (Northern and Jubilee lines plus National Rail), under ten minutes along the Queen's Walk past the covered Hay's Galleria; from Tower Hill on the Circle and District lines you cross Tower Bridge in about fifteen minutes and get the best view of the ship on the way. The price quoted is the online rate and buying at the gangway may cost a little more; in July and August the queue at the entrance is modest compared with the Tower of London opposite, though the tight spaces inside fill up after lunch, so go early.
The deepest and most affecting part of the ship: steel walkways between boilers where men worked in stifling heat.
You step inside the turret itself for a sound sequence recreating the Battle of North Cape, where Scharnhorst was sunk in 1943.
One of the best open vantages on the Thames for Tower Bridge and the Tower of London in one frame, at no extra charge.
The Queen's Walk, London SE1 2JH
The London DungeonIn the basement of County Hall, a few steps from the London Eye queue, an actor 4 minutes walk4.4
Tower of LondonWilliam the Conqueror raised it after 1078 not to protect London but to intimida5 minutes walk4.6
Tower BridgeA good many of the tourists photographing it believe it is London Bridge. It is 6 minutes walk4.9
The ShardFrom level 72, roughly 244 metres up with no roof between you and the sky, Tower6 minutes walk4.7
London BridgeNot one stone of the bridge in the nursery rhyme is still in London. Its direct 6 minutes walk4.5Not really for under-fives: pushchairs are barred everywhere except the open exterior decks, and the nine decks are linked by near-vertical steel ladders. Children of seven and up love it; with a baby, one adult stays on deck or in the café while the others explore.
The Tower first if this is your first London trip; it is the famous one. But the ship is less crowded, cheaper and more thrilling for school-age children, and the two face each other across the river by Tower Bridge, so a single day can take in both.