Overview

Generally good for accessibility, but constant problems with lifts & horrible toilets - see below.

Transport & Parking

The nearest step-free station is the nearby Tottenham Court Road, served by Northern, Central and Elizabeth lines. Check with TfL before you travel - the new lifts at this station are notoriously unreliable and are often out of service due to negligent maintenance. A few bus routes will drop you nearby in New Oxford St, just a block away.

Access

In theory step-free access into and within the museum is fine. In practice, I've often had problems with lifts. There are two outdoor platform lifts at the front of the museum, to get you to the front entrance. One or other is often out of order, sometimes both are out of order. They are worn out, shoddily designed and unreliable, and their doors are hard to manoeuvre. Lifts inside the museum are often broken. Several times I have encountered broken lifts in the Great Court rotunda, making access to exhibitions inside it awkward or impossible. Avoid the ancient lifts at the back of the building - I once got very stranded on an upper floor when one broke down. Some of the galleries are very ill-lit (entire banks of lights switched off/broken, lights inside display cases switched off/broken) - and some items in display cases remain devoid of any labelling for years at a stretch. When I wrote to the museum to complain about the bad lighting, I got a very rude and defensive (and frankly not very honest) response, which was a shocking piece of bad PR.

Toilets

There are not enough accessible toilets. They are ridiculously over-subscribed, and they are often disgustingly messy, with wet floor and bits of wet bogroll scattered around. Ugh. The red emergency cords do not all have the usual triangular plastic attachment, so they are very hard to grab hold of in an emergency, and they're often tied up out of reach. See my attached pics. The cleaners' activity/inspection logs on the toilet walls are often left unsigned/un-initialled for a whole week.

Staff

Staff on the information desk in the Great Court are friendly and helpful. Other staff are variable. On one visit I tried to enter the Museum via the back entrance. The lift there was out of order, but without any sign or information to tell us it was out of order. Eventually a pig-rude member of staff came and barked at me that it was broken and that I had to go outside and work my way round to the front of the Museum, where I found one of the two platform lifts was, as usual, broken down.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

The Great Court cafés do not have enough seating areas - they are absurdly over-crowded. The cakes are not always fresh. The cardboard plates revolt me - touching them is like scratching a blackboard - but that's a personal thing and shouldn't necessarily put you off visiting. The 3rd floor Great Court rotunda restaurant does a very good afternoon tea - pricey but worth it.

Photos