At the London Canal Museum you can see inside a narrowboat cabin, learn about the history of London’s canals, about the cargoes carried, the people who lived and worked on the waterways, and the horses that pulled their boats. Peer down into the unique heritage of a huge Victorian ice well used to store ice imported from Norway and brought by ship and canal boat to be stored. This unique waterways museum is housed in a former ice warehouse built in about 1862-3 for Carlo Gatti, the famous ice cream maker, and features the history of the ice trade and ice cream as well as the canals.
There are two themes in this unusual London museum. London’s canals have a fascinating past and you will learn not only how they came to be built but about the lives of the workers, the cargoes, horses and how canals work. We are a waterways museum first and foremost, but also an industrial museum telling the story of the ice industry in London. It is the only London museum of inland waterways and is situated at King’s Cross, an accessible central location. It is suitable for adults and children and it is fully accessible to all visitors.
