Geffrye Museum Information & Geffrye Museum Links at HealthHaven.com

Geffrye Museum frontage. The museum occupies three sides of this peaceful quadrangle (September 2005)

Geffrye Museum main portico (September 2005)

The Geffrye Museum on Kingsland Road, London, England, is named after Sir Robert Geffrye, former Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Ironmongers' Company. The museum is a non-departmental public body. Admission to the museum is free.

The museum is devoted to British furniture, textiles, paintings and decorative arts. It shows the changing style of the English domestic interior in a series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day. The emphasis is on middle class interiors and furniture, rather than the royal and aristocratic commissions often seen in museums of the decorative arts.^[1]

There are eleven period rooms on display. The Museum is also notable for its comprehensive reference library and furniture trade archive. Anyone with a personal or professional interest in furniture can apply to see these records.^[2]

The museum and its period gardens, including a walled herb garden, are brought to life regularly through innovative programmes including seminars, workshops, drama and music. Exhibitions are mounted throughout the year, showing a wide variety of themes relating to the museum's displays. A traditional favourite is the "Christmas Past" exhibition, where period rooms are festively decorated to reflect 400 years of Christmas Traditions in English homes.^[3]

Highlights of the collection:

Oriental and English porcelain, including dinner and tea services, figurines and vases
Tin-glazed wares, including decorative chargers, punch bowls, plates drug jars and other forms
Glass bottles, drinking glasses and other forms
Transfer-printed wares
Twentieth-century tablewares

The museum is housed in the beautiful Grade I listed almshouses of the Ironmongers' Company, built in 1714 at the bequest of Geffrye. It also has a modern extension opened in 1998, including a restaurant, which is popular at lunchtime.

In the future, Hoxton station on the East London Line's Northern extension to Dalston Junction will be located immediately to the east of the museum. The station is currently under construction and completion is estimated for early 2010.

[edit] Period Rooms

There are eleven period rooms on display:

Room 1 - A hall in 1630
Room 2 - A parlour in 1695
Room 3 - A parlour in 1745
Room 4 - A parlour in 1790
Room 5 - A drawing room in 1830
Room 6 - A drawing room in 1870
Room 7 - A drawing room in 1890
Room 8 - A living room in 1910
Room 9 - A dining lounge in 1935
Room 10 - A living room in 1965
Room 11 - A loft conversion in 1998

[edit] References

^ The Geffrye Museum accessed 17 Oct 2009
^ hiddenLondon accessed 02/01/08
^ Geffrye Museum accessed 02/01/08

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 51°31′54.26″N 00°04′34.39″W / 51.5317389°N 0.0762194°W / 51.5317389; -0.0762194

This article related to a museum in the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[0] The Geffrye Museum accessed 17 Oct 2009

[1] hiddenLondon accessed 02/01/08

[2] Geffrye Museum accessed 02/01/08

[1]

[2]

[3]