Our Gallery has not been able to welcome more than a few visitors at a time without a queue forming outside. Instead of entering as Sir John Soane intended in 1811, visitors have had to walk around to a side door with a small temporary ticket desk. We must provide a better welcome for our visitors and introduce our 200-year history and collection. As we are an independent museum with no government support, we also need to attract more fee-paying visitors by offering new paintings to see.

Soane's original entrance space has been used as our shop, so we have just moved the shop to a space near our exit and restored the original entrance area to show our founders' portraits and the history of our collection. Modern ticketing and information