Established | 1980 |
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Location |
Covent Garden London, WC2 |
Type | Transport museum |
Public transit access | Covent Garden |
Website | www.ltmuseum.co.uk |
The London Transport Museum, or LT Museum based in Covent Garden, London, seeks to conserve and explain the transport heritage of Britain's capital city. The majority of the museum's exhibits originated in the collection of London Transport, but, since the creation of Transport for London (TfL) in 2000, the remit of the museum has expanded to cover all aspects of transportation in the city.
The museum operates from two sites within London. The main site in Covent Garden uses the name of its parent institution, sometimes suffixed by Covent Garden, and is open to the public every day, having reopened in 2007 after a two-year refurbishment. The other site, located in Acton, is known as the London Transport Museum Depot and is principally a storage site that is open on regular visitor days throughout the year.
The museum was briefly renamed London's Transport Museum to reflect its coverage of topics beyond London Transport, but it reverted to its previous name in 2007 to coincide with the reopening of the Covent Garden site.
London Transport Museum is a registered charity under English law.
The museum's main facility is located in a Victorian iron and glass building that had formed part of the Covent Garden vegetable, fruit and flower market. It was designed as a dedicated flower market by William Rogers in 1871 and is located between Russell Street, Tavistock Street, Wellington Street and the east side of the former market square. The market moved out in 1971, and the building was occupied by the London Transport Museum in 1980. The collection had been located at Syon Park since 1973 and before that had formed part of the British Transport Museum at Clapham.
On 4 September 2005 the museum closed for a major £22 million refurbishment designed by Bryan Avery of Avery Associates Architects to enable the expansion of the display collection to encompass the larger remit of TfL which administers all forms of public transport. Enhanced educational facilities were also required. The museum reopened on 22 November 2007.