A complete guide to British museums and galleries reopening
Museums, galleries and other art spaces have started to reopen. Where can you go, and what can you see?
13 May 2021 • 6:12pm
Naum Gabo s Constructed Head No.2 is one of the artworks reopening at Tate St Ives
Credit: Ben Birchall/PA Wire
Art is back. During lockdown, of course, it never truly left. But the joys of a solo mooch around a gallery, or a family outing, were put on hold.
But now, from May 1 in some parts of the UK, and 17 May in England, the nation s galleries and art museums can welcome visitors again at last. Some smaller commercial galleries have already reopened, as they’re classed as “non-essential retail” and were thus able to welcome visitors (and customers) back, as other shops were, from April 12.
Historic buildings are being primped and preened ahead of reopening to the public on Monday.
Cinemas, museums, theatres and concert halls in England will be allowed to reopen from May 17 under step three on the road map out of lockdown.
Dozens of English Heritage sites will be among venues welcoming visitors indoors, with 23 properties opening for the first time in 2021.
English Heritage conservators have reset the dining table inside the Durbar room at Osborne on the Isle of Wight and ensured the glassware is sparkling.
Osborne offers an insight into the lives of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who created the palatial house as their family holiday home - complete with beach, grounds and gardens.
Prince Charles visits hospital staff who cared for Prince Phillip
The Duke of Edinburgh was treated for a heart condition in March at the St Bartholomew s Hospital in London
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The Prince of Wales has personally thanked the medical staff who treated the Duke of Edinburgh for a heart condition.
The Prince of Wales has personally thanked hospital staff who treated the Duke of Edinburgh for a heart condition.
Charles chatted privately with a nurse, consultant and therapist who cared for his father when he visited St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City of London.
And during an impromptu walkabout the heir to the throne met Covid patient Stella Amore-Fernandez, 46, who told him she was admitted on Christmas Day and owed her life to staff.
Charles chats to Covid patient Stella Amore-Fernandez (Chris Jackson/PA)
St Bartholomew’s is home to Barts Heart Centre, Europe’s largest specialised cardiovascular service, and in March a successful procedure was performed on Philip for a pre-existing heart condition.
By Shafik Meghji 10 May 2021
A flash of green amid traffic-choked roads, elevated railway lines and anonymous high-rise apartment and office blocks, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is a well-kept but unremarkable south London park. When I visited on a sunny spring afternoon, wildflowers dotted the grass and shouts sounded from the football pitch. At the edge of the seven-acre park, mesmerised children gazed at a trio of freshly trimmed alpacas, residents of Vauxhall City Farm. In the distance loomed the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, an ironically distinctive green-and-cream hulk on the south bank of the Thames.
It may not look it now, but this area was once home to the greatest entertainment venue in Georgian London. The original Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was a centre of culture, spectacle, intrigue and scandal during the 18th and 19th Centuries, immortalised in paintings by artists such as Canaletto and William Hogarth and in novels like William Thack