Free museums, and what they are for

In London, general entry is free at the British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the V&A, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. Special exhibitions cost money. Donation boxes are not a trick, and the institutions are under real pressure. Pay a few pounds if you can. Do not feel you must see a building in one march.

Outside London the pattern holds in different ways: National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Riverside and St Fagans in Cardiff, the national museums in Liverpool, Ulster Museum in Belfast. Always check, because a city museum and a national museum are not the same legal creature.

Go for one wing. The Sutton Hoo helmet, or the African galleries, or Turner — not all of them before lunch. Free entry is an invitation to leave. The worst museum mornings are the ones that try to be worthy of the flight.

Book a timed ticket where the museum asks, even when the ticket is free. The British Museum and others do this to manage crowds. Turn up at opening if you care about the Rosetta Stone or Hope the whale without a thicket of phones. Late afternoons are often kinder than late mornings.