Security checks before entering public buildings are nothing new, even if most don't require the full pockets-emptied luggage-scanned experience. But what is the current state of play, what's 'normal' for 2019, and are procedures inexorably tightening up? To investigate I've been to visit ten of London's biggest free museums and galleries, and would like to tell you about entering four of them (and sort-of tell you about the other six).
n.b. I won't be telling you everything, for reasons of security
n.b. I visited on a weekday in January, so visitor numbers were low.
n.b. I didn't take a bag with me, because this wasn't supposed to be a test.
1) British Museum
This is the museum which sparked my enquiries, because major changes regarding entry have been afoot. This time last year you would have approached the front or back doors and walked inside, where a member of staff would have checked your bag if you had one, and then you'd be on your way. Since then a lengthier security process has been introduced involving a detour, a big portakabin and a sterner check, and it's not obvious why.
Rather than entering through either of the gates on Great Russell Street visitors can now only use the one on the left. Here you're faced by a choice of paths, and a couple of guards to nudge you down the right one if you're not sure. Members, patrons and ticket holders get to take the direct route, while the majority are directed down an adjacent chicane which wiggles left and right for up to 50m. This railing-ed zigzag makes sense if queues are long, but is an unnecessary frustration on days (like yesterday) when queues are absent. On entering the portakabin at the far end the queue splits again, where those with bags were diverted off to a table to have theirs checked and those without invited to pass straight through. And then it's all the way back to the front of the museum to climb the steps and go in... whereas visitors without bags could have been split off much earlier and all this wasteful shenanigans avoided.
Yesterday was the British Museum's 260th birthday. I'd lost a fair bit of my celebratory sparkle before I even got inside.
2) National Gallery
Here's somewhere else that's changed its entry procedures in the last year or two. Previously you could walk up the steps at the front of the building and enter that way, as has been possible for almost 200 years, or enter via the modern Sainsbury Wing in the corner of the Square. Now you can only enter via the latter. Yesterday that meant entering a holding area outside, very briefly, then walking into the building where a pair of detector arches await. No pockets were ordered to be emptied, we were simply directed to walk through and a light above flashed either red or green. All bags were then checked at a table beyond, but no specific actions were taken based on the colour of the light. There is of course no reason for security arrangements to be made clear, but it was hard to see why the arches were present.
3) Guildhall Art Gallery
This splendid cultural repository at the heart of the City has long had the most stringent security checks of any of the ten places I visited. Even ten years ago I'd have expected to empty my pockets, load up any bag onto a conveyor and walk through an arch. So I was surprised on this occasion when I turned up and this didn't happen. A couple of security guards were still watching over the entrance, and if I'd had a bag I'm certain they'd have searched it, but the scanner was sidelined by a wall and switched off, and all I got was a cheery "Just come though Sir". What a pleasant surprise to be able to gain entrance with less security theatre rather than more.
4) Museum of London
This used to be a pleasure to enter, with nothing worse than a "maybe you'd like to leave a donation" smile from staff on the way in. Then I turned up one day last year and a full-blown metal detection operation was underway, Please empty your pockets put all your keys and small change in this tray do you have a phone please put that in too and your jacket thankyou. I always reckon things have gone too far when I have to take my belt off. But when I turned up yesterday no such operation was in place, only that good old smile from staff, and absolutely nobody carrying bags was challenged. I understand the Museum of London only implements its full security clampdown on certain days of the week, so as to engender uncertainty and caution, and to save a bit of money too. But it has reached the stage where if I see the arch in operation, as is often the case, I sigh, turn around and go somewhere else.
5) Victoria and Albert Museum
6) Natural History Museum
7) Science Museum
I had to tick off a visit to these three - it's always a pleasure. The newly scrubbed up Cast Courts at the V&A are a triumph, a blue whale's skeleton doesn't have quite the same impact as a dinosaur, and it's odd seeing the Science Museum without Stephenson's Rocket. As for getting in, that was a very mixed bag. At one of the South Kensington trio everyone with a bag was being stopped and checked, at another a guard fixed their gaze on each entrant and sometimes requested that their bag be checked, and at the third no security was present and no bags were being checked whatsoever. Unpredictability is sometimes a good thing, and who knows what measures were in place I didn't see, but I was surprised how lax one museum seemed.
8) National Portrait Gallery
9) British Library
10) Tate Modern
To finish off my tour, three other esteemed institutions. One had a separate entrance for those with bags and those without, which seemed sensible and allowed me inside at least a minute quicker than might have been the case. One has fairly recently positioned a bag check at every entrance, whereas previously anyone could wander inside without hindrance. And I'm not sure about the other, because although security let a bag of shopping go unchallenged I'm not sure what they'd have done faced with a decent-sized rucksack.
A few other observations, this time without attribution. I spotted at one of the buildings that you could easily avoid the bag check by entering via one particular entrance and then diverting through the shop, which was a gaping flaw in a so-called security cordon. At a different location the guard was being firm with people and even checking handbags, but completely missed a woman rushing through carrying two large bags, so that wasn't a foolproof system either. Elsewhere a man holding a laptop sailed through without being asked to switch it on, so at least we haven't reached maximum paranoia yet. And finally, what a lot of museums and galleries placed much more of an emphasis on harvesting donations than they did on checking bags.
It's easy to assume these security checks must be needed, because anything could happen and who knows what might? But expectations change with time, and what seems normal today would have looked astonishingly draconian fifteen years ago, and might look irresponsibly lax in fifteen years time. Even if the risks don't change, minimum default precautions often do.
Overall I think I was reassured. As a non-bag-carrying punter my entrance was barely delayed, and even visitors with bags weren't being detained for long. I didn't enjoy joining queues when it turned out nobody had any intention of searching me, but that was more about poorly-thought-through processes than excessive risk-averse paranoia. I recognise that my experience might have been very different at the weekend or in the height of summer rather than at the absolute lowpoint of the tourist calendar. But I was relieved that full-on airport style crackdowns aren't yet the norm, nor do we yet seem to be travelling in that direction.
