A museum is opening in the cells of one of London’s first police stations.
Bow Street Police Museum will tell the story, inside station cells and working rooms, of London’s first crime-fighters.
Visitors can spend time in “the tank”, the large cell where those arrested for drunken behaviour were placed.
The police station and courthouse opened in Covent Garden in 1881 and the station closed in 1992.
Bow Street Police Museum (Bow Street Police Museum/PA)
People arrested by police officers at Bow Street were held overnight and tried at the Magistrates’ Court next door.
It also dealt with extradition proceedings, terrorist offences and cases related to the Official Secrets Act, before shutting its doors in 2006.
London’s newest museum to open inside former Bow Street police station Robert Dex
London’s newest museum will open next year inside an historic court and police station, telling the story of crime and punishment in the West End over more than 100 years.
Bow Street Police Museum is part of a redevelopment scheme which has seen the grade II-listed station and magistrates court building transformed into a luxury hotel.
The museum will explore the launch of the Bow Street Runners – the first organised police force – and look at some of the famous trials held in the historic court which closed its doors in 2006.