A Hidden eye-Opening Museum Near Charing Cross

Seconds from Charing Cross Station is a brilliant historical surprise: a small museum, hidden mostly below ground: the oldest museum in the world dedicated to all things optometry including spectacles, lenses, eye tests and more.

Unbeknownst to almost everyone bustling in and out of the train station, a stone’s throw away is an extraordinary collection, amassed over decades, of around 30,000 items.

Items include the oldest pair of spectacles with arms, the most important collection of contact lenses in the world (although it was acknowledged that this is in large part due to lack of competition), celebrity specs from Madonna to Pierce Brosnan and even historical characters such as Samuel Johnson, Mahatma Gandhi and Teddy Roosevelt. Their tagline is that this is the only museum where the exhibits look at you. 

I was given a fantastic tour by Neil, the museum curator, who has been working there now for 28 years and is an absolute gold mine of information. A great fun fact to whet your appetite: the word lens derives from the latin for ‘lentil’ because they have a similar double convex shape! 

History of the Museum

The British Optical Association Museum was founded in 1901 by Mr J H Sutcliffe. They are therefore, in 2026, celebrating their 125th anniversary. 

It is looked after today by the College of Optometrists, the professional, scientific, and examining body for UK optometry. They were established in their modern form in 1980, when the British Optical Association (formed in 1895), the Scottish Association of Opticians and the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers, one of the City of London’s livery companies combined their examining roles.

The museum was set up by Sutcliffe initially as a propaganda tool to improve the status of the optometry profession. This eventually contributed to a major milestone in 1958, when the Opticians Act introduced statutory regulation of the profession

The College and Museum have moved around various different locations but have been located at 42 Craven Street, a beautiful Georgian townhouse, built in the 1730s, since 1997. Just down the road is the Benjamin Franklin House, which I wrote about previously here. 

Highlights

A Venetian Gondoliers’ Sunglasses

These delightful sunglasses date from 1790 and would have once been used by a gondolier to shield their eyes whilst gliding around the canals of Venice. They were popularised by a playwright and theatre manager called Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793), master of the Commedia dell’Arte. They are therefore thought to be the first pair of celebrity endorsed glasses. 

Spectacles From the Thames

These are not very old per se, having been put together in 2018 by the spectacle makers Cubitts, but are certainly one of the most unusual pairs in the collection and are built out of London history itself.

They consist of an acetate frame incorporating items mudlarked from the banks of the Thames. I have written about mudlarking before here. They include shards of pottery, a nail and even a bullet, which you can see at the top.

Spectacles Of The Stars

They have a mind-boggling number of pairs of glasses worn by celebrities in films or just owned by them. Most have been donated or acquired from film prop agencies.

These were the glasses worn by Madonna in the film Evita from 1996. 

Below are Jack Nicolson’s Ray-Bans.

These are the sunglasses worn by Keanu Reeves as Neo in the Matrix series of films in 2020. 

A pair broken by Pierce Brosnan in the early 00s

Eric Clapton’s NHS issued glasses.

Below are the glasses worn by actress Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė in Mission Impossible (1996). Two pairs were made at a cost of £25,000 each, because they have a little button that instantly changes their colour. 

Ronnie Corbett’s glasses.

Finally these are the glasses worn by Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. 

They have various other pairs of glasses from those films, used as test pairs etc and the glasses worn by Richard Harris as Professor Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films. 

The Glasses Of A london Legend

As a lover of London history, I found these very exciting: Dr Samuel Johnson’s glasses, the man that put together the first modern English dictionary. I have written about Samuel Johnson’s House previously here.

You will notice that the arms bend downwards. They would have therefore rested on his cheekbones rather than his ears. The theory here is that he was so large in later life that an ordinary pair would not have reached around his head. In 2003 the museum went to Samuel Johnson’s House museum and tried them on his death mask- they apparently fitted perfectly! 

Dr Johnson of course famously said ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’. This feels like a very apt quote for this museum. There is always something to learn and something new to see in this city. 

Spectacles Made By A Prisoner

These glasses were part-fashioned by a Prisoner of War imprisoned in a Japanese Interment Camp in 1945. The front is made from a toothbrush, softened by steam and worked with either a pen-knife or fret-saw.

The man who made them was a Malayan Government entomologist, whose peacetime job was dissecting mosquitos. So he must have been a man with a steady hand.

The First Glasses With Arms

This pair of glasses is really the most important item in the collection. Dating from around 1730, they are the oldest known example of a pair of glasses with arms. There are only two or three other known pairs, but no others in a museum. 

We take arms on glasses for granted today, but prior to the early 18th century, they would be balanced on the nose, or simply held in front of the eyes. 

Even better for a London history blog, the design originates in London! The very first design was introduced in London by Edward Scarlett who was appointed as optician to King George II in 1727. He ran the ‘Old Spectacle Shop’ in St Ann’s Churchyard in Soho. 

They are lucky survivors because in 1990 they were nearly thrown away in a box labelled ‘junk’. The previous museum’s curator thankfully realised their value at the last moment and kept them. 

Hat Spectacles

Speaking of how glasses were used before they had arms, these are a pair of hat spectacles from circa 1825. 

The First Creature With Eyes

This is the oldest exhibit in the collection, a trilobyte fossil over 500 million years old. A trilobyte was the first creature to develop complex, compound eyes that could sense shapes and motion.

The Infamous Barnard Castle Eye Test

I was not expecting to see an image of Dominic Cummings inside one of the cabinets. However, they have a couple of items related to Dominic Cummings’ infamous drive up to Barnard Castle during lockdown restrictions. The excuse, of course, that he used was that he was driving to test his eyesight…

Visiting The Museum

Hopefully I have persuaded you to visit this unique museum. To visit you currently have to book an appointment in advance (although this is something they are looking to hopefully change soon).

The standard guided tour is free (it includes all of the items above) and lasts around 50-60 minutes. There is also a paid version (£10) where you also see the library, the print room, various works of art and objects. Tours are available from 10am-4pm Monday-Friday.

If you do a free tour then donations are always appreciated as well.

Find out more about visiting and the button to request a tour with them here.

Thank you for reading, more of London’s amazing hidden gems below to peruse…