The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) is Britain's National Museum of Art and Design and is one of three major museums in South Kensington - the others being the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.

It was first opened in 1852 at Marlborough House in central London as a Museum of Manufacturers, following the success of the Great Exhibition, which had been held in London the previous year. In 1857 it was moved to Brompton in west London, where it was renamed the Victoria and South Kensington Museum. It acquired its current name in 1899 in honour of Queen Victoria (and her beloved husband, Albert) who had laid the foundation stone as her last public appearance.

The V&A is the largest museum of decorative arts in the world with 11 kilometres (seven miles) of corridors, tracing a path through paintings, jewellery, furniture and textiles dating from 3000BC to the present day.

Highlights include Italian Renaissance sculpture, the Raphael Cartoons, paintings and drawings by Constable, the Glass Gallery, the Dress Gallery and the Canon Photography Gallery.