"Where?" was the response when telling people we had visited the Museum of London.

But it appears my family has been let into one of the best kept secrets in London along with the million other people who visited the museum near St Paul's Cathedral in the last year.

The schools holiday throw up all sorts of dilemmas including wanting to take children somewhere new to explore with the possible bonus of it being educational too.

So deciding to head to the capital for a cheap day out, ie a free museum, I wanted to go somewhere different after having done the Natural History, Science, Imperial War and British Museums and not sure the boys of 11 and 8 might appreciate the National Portrait Gallery yet although I really want to go.

A friend had visited for the information about the Great Fire of London and the Black Death. But the Museum of London was so much more than these two events that have changed the course of history.

Finding out that woolly mammoths and rhino fossils have been found under the streets of the capital from when the tectonic plates were fused millions of years ago after walking into the first exhibit room were the first amazing facts we found out.

Travelling through prehistoric man, the stone age, iron age and Roman times before we reached the black death and then the Great Fire of London.

From video rooms, to classic visuals and unique exhibits there were also lots of items children can touch, feel and see.

The recreated Victorian street that included shops, bar and represented life in the capital almost 150 years ago was particularly interesting window into people's lives.

If felt like a race through the late 19th and rest of the 20th century but that's because so many changes have occurred from Empire building to the Suffragettes, as well as the changing fashions right up to the 1980s and today.

What the museum cleverly leaves alone is delving into the Royal family leaving it to the Tower of London, or politics just looking at how the city evolved to the hustling centre of the world it is today, as well as the World Wars that other museums in London so well.

Its location next to St Paul's Cathedral and the South Bank made it a cheap day out in London, only a cost of a family train ticket, and a day of exploration, seeing Shakespeare's Globe on the other side if the Millennium bridge, the monument to the great Fire of London, all within walking distance from the museum.

Last year one million people visited the Museum of London and Museum of London Docklands between 1 April 2014 and 16 February 2015. The second consecutive year and only the second time in the museum’s 40 year history that the attraction has been visited by over a million people in a twelve-month period.

Commenting on the results Sharon Ament, Director of the Museum of London, said: “It continues to be of utmost importance that while numbers grow, visitor experience and our public programme remain best-in-class, complemented by outstanding academic research and leading schools activities. Everybody involved with the Museum of London, from staff to volunteers and funders, deserves to be exceptionally proud of this achievement. Now we’ve laid this strong foundation, I look forward to telling the world about our plans for the future for the Museum of London later in the year. Suffice to say it will be fitting of the world’s greatest city.”