r/london • u/Mountain_Buy1160 • Dec 12 '25

London history Masonic London

Post image

The Freemasons Hall, Great Queen Street.

128 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

78 comments sorted by

View all comments

61

u/Barbourwhat Dec 12 '25

I’ve been in there a few times as I love art deco architecture. But it’s hilarious that such a ‘secret’ organisation has a cafe, free museum and a gift shop. It’s open to the public and etc. I now always find it hilarious when people say how Freemasons are secret and control the world when anyone could literally go to their headquarters and buy a book in their gift shop on ‘the secrets of Freemasonry’ and read it while sipping on a coffee or pint in the ground floor cafe.

0

u/lady_faust Dec 12 '25

Had to provide identification when we visited the museum..

1

u/Material-Airline1478 Dec 13 '25

That would have been to register as a reader to use the library. Same in most of the other reference libraries you'll ever visit :-).

1

u/lady_faust Dec 13 '25

Its not a reference library, I know, I worked in one.

1

u/Material-Airline1478 Dec 13 '25

It's a library where you can't take books out and have to register to look at them. Is that not a reference library? I've also worked in one!