Geffrye Museum

Here are some pictures from the Geffrye Museum in Hoxton. It used to be an alms­house, and is now a museum of furniture and interi­ors. They have rooms set up show­ing typic­al London living rooms in vari­ous time peri­ods from the 1600s onwards for famil­ies with a medi­um income, with inform­a­tion about all the objects in the room. They also have a histor­ic­al garden and restored 18th century alms­house interi­or, but I didn’t get a chance to see them this time. In the run up to Christ­mas, they’d arranged each room to show how differ­ent winter fest­ivals were celeb­rated in each era (until the 1800s New Year and Twelfth Night were much bigger than Christ­mas). The 17th Century sweets were really impressive.I’d never got round to going there before, but I wish I’d gone soon­er. I’ll defin­itely be return­ing. I’m a suck­er for social history, and museums show­ing how ordin­ary people lived. I also like the Six Poor Trav­el­ers House in Rochester, and the Mack­in­tosh House at Glas­gow Univer­sity.

Hand-prin­ted wall­pa­per in the Geor­gi­an room.

Mid-Victori­an toys.

Aesthet­ic styled room for the 1890s.

Arts and Crafts move­ment for the 1900s

Inter­war enter­tain­ing. I do love a good drinks trol­ley.

Post-war open plan.

1950s Christ­mas.