“The Princess Royal this morning visited the Metropolitan Police Crime Museum at New Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment, London SW1, and was received by Colonel Jane Davis (Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London).”(The Times, 22nd October, 2025)
I am looking for an exhibition to visit with friends next month and this sounded an interesting option with good restaurants nearby. OK, it’s a bit macabre but what’s not to like about seeing such a range of exhibits collected over the last 150 years.
Do you remember the foiled diamond heist on the Millenium Dome? We can see the fake De Beers diamond, the gun used in the attempt to kidnap Princess Anne (hope the Princess Royal saw it), the revolver used by Ruth Ellis and the noose used to hang her. Other exhibits include:
The trunk from the Charing Cross Trunk Murder; three guns from the 1944 cleft chin murder case; the poisons kit of the Lambeth Poisoner, a Scottish-born serial killer; the eponymous pieces of evidence from the February 1918 “Badge and Button Murder”, also known as the Eltham Common murder; clothing and hair samples from the Harley Street Mystery; a cast of the hole drilled into the vault wall during the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary; a cigarette lighter with a hidden compartment belonging to the Krogers; the ricin-filled pellet that killed Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov; shotguns disguised as umbrellas and lots of walking-stick swords; a selection of hangman‘s nooses, and death masks made for criminals executed at Newgate Prison acquired in 1902 when the prison closed.
I think it will take at least an hour to do the museum justice and it will yield a rich source of topics to blog about. I checked the opening hours which are quite straightforward. The museum is not open to the public.
You say the museum is not open to the public – how does one then visit?
I’m pretty sure that the Scotland Yard Black Museum is only open to invited guests… ie groups by special invitation. Never been there. I gather it’s fascinating- a friend of mine managed to see it, but he was working for the CPS at the time.
It is, as Luke says, closed to the public As I wrote, the hours are straightforward – it is always closed.
I have seen it- its grotesque. Prominent place is given to the hangman’s nooses. The guide pointed out the cloth sewn onto the rope put there to stop the rope causing painful abrasions to the neck: a measure that he clearly considered as evidence of society going soft. Apparently, peers (I don’t know if that extended to Irish peers) being hung got silk while everyone else had to settle for calico.