Friday, 25 June, 2021
The Geffrye museum has finally reopened (June 12), except now it’s called Museum of the Home and, as with any museum at the moment, you have to book ‘a slot’ to go in. Luckily for me, it’s close to home and also very close to my physiotherapist.
People have questioned me, Museum of the Home, what does that mean? Built in an area that once boasted many furniture makers, in almshouses from 1714, it originally showed ‘the middle class’ interiors through time. As well, there were always modern exhibits of how people lived in their own spaces. When the museum closed to renovate, there was an opportunity to put a bigger focus on the latter. The larger space can now house events and classrooms.
I have gone to the museum over many years and I’ve done the almshouse tour. But my favourite has always been Christmas time. And before Christmas I’ve gone to the wreath workshops, then afterwards to the Twelfth Night celebrations. I went soon after they closed for a hardhat tour and was really looking forward to seeing the finished renovation. The links are all to past blogs mentioning these visits.
On its very first day of reopening, the museum encountered opposition.
There has been a lot of controversy about the statue of Robert Geffrye which stands outside. Geffrye had connections with the forced labour and trading of enslaved Africans and it was money from his estate that allowed the building of the almshouses that now house the museum. There has been a demand for the statue to be taken down, indeed all statues and memorials to those involved with slave ownership. Despite the protests, the museum’s Board of Trustees decided in July 2020 to leave the statue where it is and contextualise it. The day of the reopening, there were protests by Hackney’s Stand Up To Racism group.
I wasn’t sure if our visit might be disrupted by the protests when we went the next day, but it was quiet.
There’s a new entrance now, at the back of the almshouses, by the Hoxton Overground station. We arrived by bus at the front of the almshouses so had to walk around the block to get in. I believe that there would normally be an entrance from that direction, but like many places the museum is operating a one-way system – so in at the back, out at the front.
We started on the lower floor, on the one-way system. This lower floor is what was made during the renovations. It features how people live and what home means to them, in terms of culture, religion, and comfort. During the hardhat tour I couldn’t imagine what would go in there but many old spaces had been uncovered and I really like this ‘new’ area. The chance to see how everyone creates their own space is really welcome.
One of the most fascinating things in the museum is the John Evelyn Cabinet, purchased by its owner in 1644. Sounds like it was in the V&A before. I wouldn’t want it in my house but it’s an elaborate work of art, which would make any cabinetmaker cry with envy. Its description is as elaborate as the woodwork, but in brief it’s an ebony veneered oak cabinet made up of many drawers, fourteen of which were secret. It was probably bought in Florence during a European ‘grand tour.’ John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist. I’ll let you read more about the cabinet yourself. If you’re a cabinetmaker, you can read about the construction in detail here. For me, even without its astounding appearance and construction, it is of significant importance. In 1813 diaries were discovered in one of the secret drawers. They were published in 1817. Although Samuel Pepys’s diaries are more celebrated, Evelyn’s diaries came first and probably prompted the attention given to Pepys’s. I’ve read neither so there’s a challenge!
