Open House Festival

The National Archives

government, community/cultural

McMaster/Clavering/Miller/O'Reilly, 1977

Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU

South West London's hidden Brutalist masterpiece.

Getting there

Tube

Kew Gardens

Train

Kew Bridge

Bus

65, 391, R68

Additional travel info

The National Archives is located just off the South Circular road, near to the M4. There are several options for reaching us by public transport, and we also provide bicycle racks for those arriving by bike. We charge a fee to park in our visitor car park. We provide free parking for motorbikes and bicycles, and accessible parking bays for disabled visitors.

Access

Facilities

About

What's On

Join us for Open House Festival, a celebration of London's architecture. With a special programme of tours and drop-in events, find out more about The National Archives’ building and collection.

• Explore the unique architecture of The National Archives with our special guided architecture tours around our purpose-built ‘brutalist bunker’ built in 1977 to house our vast collection. The tour also includes the opportunity to visit our rooftop.

• Join a behind the scenes tour, and journey into our repositories and discover some of the hidden gems in our collection.

• Our specialists will also be on hand with a drop-in display where you can see some of our Board of Trade registered designs collection, featuring some remarkable designs from the Victorian era.

• Our Spirit of Invention exhibition will be open all weekend, along with Time Travel Craft Club, a free drop-in craft session which takes place between 11am-2pm in our public restaurant.

Find out more about us, our events and to book at https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/open-house-festival-2242849

Who we are

We are a non-ministerial department, and the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, and for England and Wales. We are the guardians of over 1,000 years of iconic national documents.

Our building including our reading rooms, exhibitions, shop and café are free to visit and open to all.

Opening times

Saturday 9 September: 09:30 – 17:00

Sunday 10 September: 11:00 – 16:00

Online presence

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/visit-us/whats-on/events

Nearby

Back to top of page