The Museum of the Home is where you get to peek into people’s (reconstructed) living rooms. And 400 years of living rooms, at that. It also showcases objects that made a major impact on everyday life, and puts on exhibitions that delve into the meaning of “home”.
At a glance...
The Museum of the Home: practical information and some handy tips
Cost: free
Opening Hours: Tue – Sun 10am–5pm (last entry 4pm)
Address: 136 Kingsland Road, Hoxton, E2 8EA
How to get there: the nearest station is Hoxton (Overground). The museum is directly opposite the station. Busses 149, 242, 243 and 394 stop right in front of the Kingsland Road entrance.
Website: https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/
Step free access? Yes
Café: https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/visit-us/museum-cafe/
Shop: https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/visit-us/museum-shop/
Toilets? Yes
Neighbourhood: Hoxton/Hackney/Shoreditch (depending on how you look at it – East London in any case)
Handy (well, hopefully) tips:
- There are two entrances, one on Kingsland Road, where you get to admire the elegant front façade of the almshouses, and the other one just opposite Hoxton Station. This one has a large ramp and may be best for accessibility.
- The “Rooms through time” exhibition is in two parts, the first part is housed in remodelled space in the original almshouses, and the second part in a new extension on the other side of the building.
And also: you can explore the collection online, too: https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/explore/our-collections/
Living rooms: then and now
It’s the recreated living rooms (“Rooms through time”) that are the main attraction, obviously. From a 1630s Great Hall to a 1990s loft conversion in Peckham, they’re small vignettes that tell visitors about the history of everyday life over the past four centuries.
Around Christmas, the living rooms are given a seasonal touch, with little stories to make the period come alive: “An afternoon at the Frost Fair in 1683”, “Twelfth Night in 1830” or “Christmas day in 1937”. The displays are endearingly untidy. You really do get the feeling that the rooms have been left for just a short time. The occupants will come back soon, they’re just in another part of the house right now.
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A short history of the Museum of the Home
The Museum of the Home is housed in almshouses that were built just over 300 years ago (in 1714) for pensioners associated with the Ironmongers’ Company.
When the area turned into an overcrowded hell-hole thanks to London’s rapid expansion at the turn of the century, the pensioners were moved to greener pastures (Kent, if you’re wondering). The almshouses and their grounds were sold to the London City Council (LCC, then the ruling body for London) and LCC made them into a museum of “cabinet making and kindred arts”. This opened in 1914. The East End at that time was the centre of the local furniture trade, and the museum would have been a local resource for manufacturers and skilled workers.
In the 1930s, the museum started to display historical living room set-ups in chronological order from the 1600s to today. 1992 saw the creation of “Gardens through time”. From a Tudor knot garden to a contemporary green roof, this charts the development of private gardens. (Best visited in summer, probably, but lovely even in winter.)
The Museum of the Home was previously known as the Geffrye Museum of the Home, and – before that – the Geffrye museum. The almshouses were financed by a donation from Robert Geffrye, wealthy merchant and former master of the aforementioned Ironmongers’ Company. Like several of his contemporaries, part of Geffrye’s fortune was made though his involvement in the slave trade; this is something that comes across as a source of great pain to the museum.
