There are so many things to do and places to visit in London, you could easily do something different every day for a year and never see the same thing twice. So it’s no surprise that there are some attractions which even people living in the capital might not know about, despite being near some of the city’s most popular sites.
Hidden beneath a church within a stone’s throw of the Tower of London is an incredible museum full of artefacts that tell the story of the city over the past 2,000 years. The museum is located in the crypt of All Hallows by the Tower Church in Byward Street, just a few yards from Tower Hill Underground station and the Tower of London itself.
Jack Chesher, who has almost 250,000 followers on TikTok, where he regularly shines a light on some of London’s lesser-known things to see and places to visit, popped in. In his video, he said: “Not many people know that, literally minutes from the Tower of London, is an amazing underground museum, and it’s totally free. This is one of the things I always recommend people to go and do whilst visiting London.”
Walking into the church, which was founded in 675AD, he continued: “The church nave itself is wonderful and worth a look around. But if you go down these stairs, you’ll find yourself in the old church crypt. Down here you realise that London really is a city built on a city built on a city.”
Jack showed off some of what you can see, including a section of tessellated flooring from a Roman villa and a gravestone from the same period found nearby, as well as a model of Roman-era London dating back to the 1960s. “They also have little vaults down here, once used to hold bodies, now used as a sort of mini chapel,” he continued.
“Most of these layers of archaeology and history were revealed during the Blitz. The church was gutted by incendiary bombs and restored after the war.”
According to the church’s website, the building survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, but had to be extensively rebuilt after the German bombing of World War Two. Describing the museum, the site says: “The museum leads you on a fascinating journey through time, charting the history of the church, its people, and the City of London.
“The museum is in part of the original Saxon church and contains part of the Roman tessellated floor of a late second century domestic house, a collection of Roman and Saxon artefacts, church plate and ancient registers dating back to the 16th century.”
Other artefacts on show include the crow’s nest from the Quest, the ship upon which Sir Ernest Shackleton embarked on his third and final voyage to the Antarctic in 1921. The church has a rating of 4.6 out of five on Tripadvisor, with many visitors praising the museum.
One, who visited in 2014, said: “We found this little church by accident after visiting the Tower of London. It is very close. The church is the oldest in London and has many artefacts with good explanations of them.
“The crypt museum (down steps) is very interesting with many different rooms. It contains, amongst other things, a Knights Templar alter, ancient registers showing the baptism of William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) and John Adams (sixth president of the USA), a Roman mosaic floor, an ancient chapel.”
Another wrote: “Well this was a pleasant surprise and completely on the spur of the moment. We had walked to The Tower of London to view the Ceramic Poppy display which we thought would be like they were 10 years ago.
“This was not the case and so we walked away and by pure chance my wife spotted All Hallows By The Tower which the four of us walked in to. It was a superb building with so much history and lots of details about the past.
“The crypt area underneath is amazing with so many artefacts etc to view and see. We all spent nearly an hour wandering about and taking in the history of this place. If you have never been before it is certainly worth a visit and its free to enter although there is a box to donate what you would like.”
