F

rom toys to taxidermy, and fashion to Vikings, England has museums for almost any subject. Best of all, though, is that many of them are free.

As you’d expect,   London has some real big hitters – the   V&A , the  Natural History Museum and the  British Museum being just a few – but the smaller, off-the-beaten track establishments are worth a visit, too.

In Shoreditch, East London, for example, you’ll find the Geffrye Museum – a row of beautiful old alms houses that have been decorated to reflect England’s changing interior design trends, from Elizabethan times to the 1950s. And just down the road in Bethnal Green you’ll find the V&A’s Museum of Childhood , which has a rather cool selection of children’s toys (don’t miss the giant dolls’ houses).

Meanwhile,  Jane Austen addicts should take a pilgrimage to the ever-so-elegant townhouse in Bath where the writer lived; and why not pop into the  Museum of Costume too, which is nearby.

Literary buffs will love Roald Dahl’s museum that is dedicated to his life and writing, in Buckinghamshire. Or for something slightly different try Tring’s  Natural History Museum , which houses the vast taxidermy collection horded by eccentric Edwardian, Walter Rothschild. Not the kind of place you’d want to be left alone in overnight…