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Past display

Slow Horses at The National Archives

Date
16 September to 23 November 2025
Price
Free
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About Slow Horses at The National Archives

Spy drama met real-life espionage at this now-closed display at The National Archives.

Visitors could get up close to the drama of Apple TV+’s Slow Horses series with our display of props from the award-winning series.

For over a hundred years, MI5 has operated in almost complete secrecy, leaving fiction writers free to satisfy our intrigue into the world of spies and spy-catchers.

The spy drama Slow Horses, an adaptation of author Mick Herron's Slough House book series, follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents exiled for their career-ending mistakes to a fictional dumping ground department of MI5, known unaffectionately as Slough House.

Recreating the drab office environment of Slough House, this display used original props and furniture from the series together with outfits worn by the characters Jackson Lamb (played by Gary Oldman) and Diana Taverner (played by Kristin Scott Thomas).

MI5: Official Secrets

This display complemented MI5: Official Secrets, our 2025 exhibition in partnership with the Security Service, which presented original case files, photographs, papers and equipment from MI5.

The display