Greek mythology in London is not hidden away in a single gallery. It is carved into the Bank of England, lined up along the walls of the British Museum, painted on the ceilings of a Marylebone townhouse and standing naked at Hyde Park Corner. This month the City gives it a proper night out: on Thursday 19 November the Bank of England Museum opens late for an evening called In the Shadow of Olympus, and it is free.
We spotted it in Secret London’s list of things to do in November and built a day around it. Every stop below is free and central, and next to each one there is a Greek List member where you can eat, drink a proper freddo or sort out something practical.
You can do this Greek mythology in London trail in one long day or spread it over two weekends. A Thursday plan would be the British Museum, the Soane and the Wallace in daylight, then the Bank of England late at 5.15pm.
Walk round the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street and look up. The building is covered in classical figures, gods and allegories that its architects used to stand for trade, navigation, wisdom and trust. The museum’s late on Thursday 19 November, 5.15pm to 8pm, turns that decoration into a trail. You follow a route of Olympian figures through the building and at each one there are short explanations, hands on activities and crafts. Entry is free, but book a ticket on the museum’s page, because the lates sell out and walk ins only get in if there is space.
There is also a separate free talk at 6pm the same evening, From Olympus to Threadneedle Street, by the museum’s engagement manager Dr Monica Walker. It needs its own ticket, and a talk ticket also gets you into the late. Expect airport style security at the door, so leave the big bag at home.
Getting there: Bank of England Museum, Bartholomew Lane, EC2R 8AH. Bank station (Central, Northern, Waterloo & City, DLR) is two minutes away.
Greek stop nearby: Dental Love is the Greek dental practice at 1 King William Street, three minutes from the museum door. If you work in the City and have been putting off a check up, this is the excuse to book one in Greek.
No guide to Greek mythology in London can skip Room 18. The Parthenon sculptures show the gods of Olympus watching the Panathenaic procession, the birth of Athena and her contest with Poseidon for Athens. Whatever you think about where the marbles belong (and most of us have an opinion), standing in front of them is still the closest you get to the Acropolis without a flight. Next door in Room 17 the Nereid Monument is guarded by sea nymphs, and upstairs the Bassae frieze runs Greeks, Amazons and centaurs around the room in one strip.
Entry is free, the museum opens daily at 10am and stays open late on Fridays. Go early on a weekday for the Parthenon gallery without the school groups, and give yourself an hour for Rooms 13 to 23, the Greek world from the Bronze Age to Alexander.
Getting there: Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG. Tottenham Court Road, Holborn and Russell Square stations are all under ten minutes on foot.
Greek stop nearby: The Life Goddess on Store Street is five minutes from the museum gate, for a plate of Greek meze and a glass of wine after the marbles. For a longer sit down, Elysée on Percy Street in Fitzrovia has been feeding Greeks in London for decades and is a ten minute walk away.
Hertford House is the townhouse museum most Londoners walk past without knowing it is free, and it holds the richest painted Greek mythology in London outside the National Gallery. Boucher’s huge canvases show Apollo rising from and sinking into the sea, Poussin’s Dance to the Music of Time has the sun god driving his chariot across the sky, and the French rooms treat Venus, Diana and Cupid as regulars. The Wallace also owns Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda, so ask at the desk whether it is hanging when you visit, because it travels.
Open daily from 10am to 5pm, and entry to the permanent galleries is free.
Getting there: Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1U 3BN. Bond Street station is five minutes away, Baker Street about ten.
Greek stop nearby: Kima at 57 Paddington Street is a ten minute walk north, for modern Greek seafood that was built for a slow lunch. The Hellenic Centre is on the same street, so check what is on there the same day.
Soane was the architect of the Bank of England, which makes his house the natural companion to stop one. He filled 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields from floor to ceiling with casts of classical sculpture, temple fragments, antique vases and marbles, lit through coloured skylights and mirrors. It feels like walking into the mind of a man who loved the ancient world a bit too much, and it is one of the strangest free museums in Europe.
Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, last entry 4.30pm. Free, no booking, but the house is small, so expect a short queue on Saturdays.
Getting there: 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2A 3BP. Holborn station is four minutes away.
Greek stop nearby: Nostimo at 9 Brunswick Centre is a fifteen minute walk up through Bloomsbury, for souvlaki, pies and Greek coffee in a setting that is more Athens than Holborn.
Finish outdoors. The bronze Achilles behind Apsley House was cast in 1822 from French cannon captured in Wellington’s campaigns and paid for by the women of Britain, who were scandalised to find their hero wearing nothing but a shield. It was London’s first public nude statue and it is still the biggest piece of Greek mythology in London you can see from a bus. Cross to Wellington Arch for the quadriga on top, then walk into the park before the light goes.
Getting there: Hyde Park Corner station, exit for Apsley House. Free, open all hours.
Still hungry for Greek mythology in London? The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square has Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne and a wall of Olympians, also free. On Saturday 14 November the Lord Mayor’s Show passes the Bank and the Bank of England Museum opens that Saturday as a one off. And Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess runs at the Ashmolean in Oxford until April, an hour from Paddington.
Our Greek events page is the most complete list of Greek events in the UK, and the next two weeks are busy around the same neighbourhoods as this guide:
Organising something Greek? Listing an event on Greek List is free and takes five minutes.
The restaurants and the clinic in this guide are Greek List members. More than 100,000 Greeks and Cypriots in the UK read Greek List every month through the site, the newsletter and the Ellines sto Londino Facebook group, and Greek List listings rank first on Google for searches like “Greek restaurant near me” or “Greek dentist London”. If you want your business in the next guide, join them.
Which of the five have you done, and which gods did we miss? Tell us in the Facebook group Ellines sto Londino.
