The British Museum

The Rosetta Stone, and the Parthenon sculptures in a room built expressly for them

Founded in 1753 on a physician's bequest and opened to "all studious and curious persons" without charge, a policy it has never abandoned. The Great Court, roofed in glass by Norman Foster in 2000, is the largest covered square in Europe and functions as a free public room in the middle of London.

The collection is encyclopaedic and contested in equal measure. The Parthenon sculptures, the Benin bronzes and the Rosetta Stone are all here, all displayed with increasing candour about how they arrived, and the debate about where they belong is now part of what you are visiting.