Museum in Docklands

Housed in a converted 200-year-old warehouse once used to store sugar, rum and coffee, this museum offers a comprehensive overview of the entire history of the Thames from the arrival of the Romans in AD 43. But it’s at its best when dealing with specifics close by such as the controversial transformation of the decrepit docks into Docklands in the 1980s. The tour begins on the 3rd floor (take the lift to the top) with the Roman settlement of Londinium – don’t miss the delightful Roman blue-glass bowl discovered in pieces at a building site in Prescot St E1 in 2008 – and works its way downwards through the ages. Keep an eye open for the scale mode of the old London Bridge and the Rhinebeck Panorama (1805–10), a huge mural of the upper Pool of London. An excellent new gallery called London, Sugar & Slavery examines the capital’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. Kids adore such exhibits as Sailortown (an excellent re-creation of the cobbled streets, bars and lodging houses of a mid-19th-century dockside community and nearby Chinatown) and the hands-on Mudlarks gallery, where five- to 12-year-olds can explore the history of the Thames, tipping the clipper, trying on old-fashioned diving helmets, learning to use winches and even constructing a simple model of Canary Wharf.