Keats House reopens
On Friday 24 July 2009 Keats House opened again to the
public after a major restoration project funded by the Heritage
Lottery Fund with significant financial support from the City of
London. The project title, Magic Casements, comes from
Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, composed in 1819 while he was living
at the house. It reflects the aim of the project to unlock the
magic of Keats House and to open new windows onto its place in John
Keats’s life and work.
The project as a whole will run until the summer of 2010 and
after the house re-opens there will be a wide range of new
activities and events, particularly in our community, schools and
volunteer programmes. Check the website regularly for news of
these.
What we have done so far includes the following:
- Each room has been redecorated based on the analysis of
surviving paint and wallpaper and expert advice on Regency interior
design.
- The first floor landing has been opened up revealing original
panelling
- An additional room in the basement has been opened up to the
public. This was likely to have been a small dining area and has
been restored as such.
- Also in the basement the late twentieth century quarry floor
tiles have been replaced with stone paving in the corridor and one
room to complement the rest of the floor there.
- The boiler and all the radiators have been replaced, providing
a better, more controlled environment for displaying the
collections and a less obtrusive system in the restored rooms.
- Four new display cases have been installed to enable more of
the small items from the collections to be seen, some of which have
never been on display before.
- New light fittings, more in keeping with the period, have been
introduced.
- The oil paintings in the collection have had a up to date
conservation assessment made and some remedial work undertaken at
our sister organisation, the Guildhall Art Gallery.
- New furniture for the welcome area has been made and new sales
stock designed and purchased.
- The outside of the house has also been repainted, using lime
wash, which would have been used on the house in the early
nineteenth century.
- Small repairs have also been undertaken on the roof and chimney
pots
The old floodlighting is being replaced with lighting more in
keeping with the age of the house and the residential nature of the
area.
£424,000 Heritage Lottery grant for Keats House
Keats House will be transformed thanks to a grant of £424,000 from
the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The award is the culmination of
four years of preparation and research work for the Magic Casements
project. It will allow the Grade 1 listed building to be
sensitively and painstakingly restored internally, to reflect its
original decoration. Improvements to security and environment will
also enable much more of the collection to be publicly
displayed.
News of the project and updates on progress will be posted here
during our closure.
Why Magic Casements?
“Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas,
in faery lands forlorn” - Ode to a
Nightingale
The project title Magic Casements comes from Keats’s Ode to a
Nightingale, which was written in the garden at Wentworth Place in
the Spring of 1819. The aim of the project is to restore the
internal fabric of the house, creating a living space that Keats
would have recognised and providing an authentic example of Regency
style. As we unlock the history and magic of Keats House, we will
be using his poems and letters as a reference point, enabling us to
revisit the time when Keats heard the nightingale.