Kenwood House

Kenwood House sits at the northern edge of Hampstead Heath above London and offers one of the city's rare free encounters with old masters. The former mansion was rebuilt in neoclassical style by Robert Adam in 1764 for William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield - the bright library with its vaulted ceiling and gilded stucco is considered Adam's masterpiece. In 1925 brewing heir Edward Cecil Guinness, Earl of Iveagh, bought the house and bequeathed it to the nation in 1927 along with his art collection, the Iveagh Bequest. It holds Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Two Circles, Vermeer's Guitar Player, and works by Gainsborough, Reynolds and Romney. In 2024 around 93,000 people visited; outside stretches the wild Heath with its view over the City skyline - both free to enter.