Visitors to the Regency villa in Hampstead where Romantic poet, John Keats, lived and wrote some of his best-known work, including ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, are being invited to experience the ‘rediscovered’ house as it looked 100 years ago.
Celebrating its opening to the public on 9 May 1925, the ‘Keats House 100’ exhibition will explain how, for a time, it was in danger of being sold as an ‘Eligible Building Site’, before being reborn as a ‘museum and live memorial to John Keats.’
The exhibition will immerse visitors in the look and feel of the house when it first opened to the public, with new displays featuring objects that could be seen in the house in 1925.
Visitors will discover how the Keats House Memorial Committee was formed to protect and purchase the property and its collections before handing it to Hampstead Borough Council to be opened as a museum. Its first guidebook, which features in the exhibition, celebrated that the ‘Keats Memorial House’ had been “secured for the public use for ever” as a memorial to his life.
After Keats left Wentworth Place (as it was then known) in 1820, his fiancée, Fanny Brawne and later, his sister, Fanny Keats, continued to live there until the early 1830s but, after they moved away, the house’s connection with Keats was lost. For 90 years, it was a private residence. Following his death, interest in Keats grew and a plaque was installed shortly after the centenary of his birth.
From 1997, the Corporation assumed responsibility for Keats House, which is a registered charity and provided by the City Corporation as part of its contribution to the cultural life of London and the nation.
Celebrated as a literary meeting place and centre, equally as popular with long-time admirers of Keats’ work as those discovering poetry for the first time, the house runs a diverse events programme and welcomes visitors from all over the world.
Chairman of the Corporation’s Culture, Heritage, and Libraries Committee, Munsur Ali, said:
“Nestling in a quiet street in leafy Hampstead, Keats House has a wealth of admirers, who will surely be enchanted by this exhibition and most likely, surprised by its mixed fortunes over the last century.
“The invitation to step back in time to 1925 sounds too good to resist, so I hope that visitors will enjoy their time spent in the house, which is arguably one of the jewels in London’s crown.”
The Corporation is one of the largest funders of heritage and cultural activities in the UK, investing over £130m every year. The organisation manages a range of world-class cultural and heritage institutions, including the Barbican Centre, Tower Bridge, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Guildhall Art Gallery, The London Archives, and Keats House. It also supports the London Symphony Orchestra and the new London Museum.
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