Across London this week, hundreds of thousands of families have been celebrating the start of the summer holidays.

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For many of them, that means a trip to the museum.

In London, our new "Weekend Hopper" means that, for the first time, parents can make unlimited bus journeys every Saturday and Sunday for the price of a single fare. That’s just as well, because their options for places to visit are almost endless.

In the Natural History Museum, they can marvel at the wonders of the wild and lose themselves in tales of our prehistoric past. In the British Museum, they can learn about cultures from around the world - from China and Japan to Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In the Tate Modern, they can admire era-defining art which has challenged old ideas and changed the world in the process. But wherever they choose to go, there will be one constant: they won’t have to pay a penny to enter.

Today, free museums and galleries are a fundamental part of London life – so fundamental, in fact, that we sometimes forget it didn’t use to be this way. Until 2001, many of the capital’s most important cultural institutions required visitors to pay for entry. It wasn’t until the government at the time introduced free admission that everything changed.

It’s impossible to overstate just how revolutionary........

© LBC