Park Row, Greenwich, London SE10 9NF

Phone:

020 7222 1234

Website:

http://www.rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum

Opening times:

Daily 10.00–17.00
Easter opening (28 Mar–11 April): 10.00–18.00

How to get there:

Cannon Street (rail)
Bank or Tower Gateway (DLR)
Jubilee or Northern Lines (Tube) to London Bridge, then change on to direct above-ground train

Entry fee:

Free

Windmill Road, Wimbledon Common, London SW19 5NR

Phone:

020 8788 7655

Website:

www.wimbledonwindmill.org.uk

Opening times:

April–Oct Sat 14:00–17:00, Sun and bank holidays 11:00–17:00

How to get there:

Tube: Wimbledon (then bus 93)

Entry fee:

Admission charge

On the northern edge of Wimbledon common is the old village windmill, formerly one of many, built in 1817 by a local carpenter, Charles March. It is the only hollow-post flour-mill remaining in this country. In the 1860s it was converted into cottages and has undergone several restorations, in the 1890s, 1950s and most recently in 1999, when its sails were restored to working order. Original machinery is on show, and scale models of different types of mill. It was here that Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the international scouting movement, wrote Scouting for Boys (1908).

The All England Lawn Tennis Club, Church Road, SW19 5AE

Phone:

020-8944 1066

Website:

www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/museum_and_tours

Opening times:

Daily 10:00–17:00

How to get there:

Tube: Southfields; Station: Wimbledon (from Waterloo)

Entry fee:

Admission charge

Additional information:

Café and shop

Originally established as part of the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s centenary celebrations in 1977, the museum explores the history and development of tennis from its early antecedents in ancient Greece, via the medieval royal origins of the modern game and genteel disportment on Victorian lawns, to the multi-million dollar professional sport of today. There are reconstructions of the original Wimbledon men’s dressing room and of a racquet-maker’s shop, and a costume gallery recording the remarkable changes to tennis dress over the past 120 years. Photographic and other memorabilia of stars past and present can be seen, including Björn Borg’s racquet. An audio-visual theatre shows highlights of great players in action. The museum can be seen as part of a tour of the All England Tennis Club, which takes you to Court I, the Winter Gardens, the Press Interview Room and the International Box of the world-famous Centre Court.

2 Willow Road, Hampstead, NW3 1TH

Phone:

020-7435 6166

Website:

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/2-willow-road

Opening times:

Wed-Mon 11:00-17:00

How to get there:

Tube: Hampstead/ Station: Hampstead Heath

Entry fee:

Admission charge

2 Willow Road is the middle of three houses designed by the important and uncompromising Modernist architect Ernô Goldfinger, It was where he and his wife Ursula Blackwell, of the Crosse & Blackwell family, lived from 1939. Goldfinger died in 1987 and his wife in 1991, when the house and its contents were bequeathed to the National Trust. An important example of the modern movement, it is especially fortunate that the furniture and contents survive with it, which give a true sense of how the house was lived in.

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1902, Goldfinger trained in Paris, where he was introduced to the use of reinforced concrete, and moved to London in 1934. Best known for his monumental, Brutalist high-rise buildings of the 50s and 60s (Alexander Fleming House, Balfron Tower and Trellick Tower, some of London’s least-loved landmarks), the Willow Road houses are earlier, built in 1939 to much local opposition. Externally they form a narrow, rectangular block, of concrete with a flat roof, visually unified by horizontal lines. Internally they have large windows with views over Hampstead Heath. The main living area is on the second floor, open-plan with square proportions, vistas through framed spaces and carefully controlled colours and surfaces (smooth polished wooden floors, matt plywood, and textured concrete). The built-in furniture and other interior details, such as the raised open fire, were designed by Goldfinger. Items from his art collection on show include works by Henry Moore and Max Ernst. Goldfinger’s designs for the house show spare interiors, but the contents show that the reality of living was less austere.

Lloyd Park, Forest Road, Walthamstow, E17 4PP

Phone:

020-8496 4390

Website:

www.wmgallery.org.uk

Opening times:

Wed–Sun 10:00–17:00

How to get there:

Tube: Walthamstow Central

Entry fee:

Free

Additional information:

Wheelchair access to ground floor only. Shop

The William Morris Gallery is dedicated to the great and hugely influential decorative arts pioneer William Morris (1834–96), artist, craftsman, designer and writer as well as typographer and prominent socialist. The museum’s collections illustrate Morris’ life and works, and that of his associates, contemporaries and Arts and Craft followers.

Morris was born in Walthamstow, less than a mile away at Elm Park. After the death of his father, a wealthy City businessman, the family moved to the museum’s building, a substantial Georgian house of the late 1740s, known as The Water House after its ornamental moat in the grounds, where the Morris family would fish, boat and skate. Morris lived here from 1848–56 but today the open fields and countryside which he would have known have been swallowed up by dense terraced housing, a process of suburban development which began in the 1870s with the extension of the railway. In Morris’s words, Walthamstow became ‘terribly cocknified and choked up by the jerry-builders’. The house was purchased by the newspaper proprietor Edward Lloyd, of Lloyd’s Weekly and the Daily Chronicle, who in 1898 donated it to the people of Walthamstow. The nucleus of the present collections was formed by the Walthamstow Antiquarian Society, and important items were purchased after the closure of Morris & Co in 1940. In 1935 the artist Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867–1956) donated a large collection of his own work, and that of the Pre-Raphaelite painters and his late 19th- and 20th-century contemporaries; and another major donation was made by A.H. Mackmurdo, an architect, designer and founder of the Century Guild, who had introduced Brangwyn to Morris.

The house is set in pleasant, spacious grounds (Lloyd Park) but with rather municipal planting. The old moat survives, and a small aviary houses cockatoos and zebra finches.

Ground Floor

The ground-floor displays begin to the left of the light and airy Entrance Hall, in the former Drawing and Reception Rooms, set up as a museum rather than a home. Exhibits start with Morris’s early life, with views of his previous Walthamstow homes, his time at Oxford and his friendship with Edward Burne-Jones. The medieval-style helmet and sword was designed by Morris as a costume prop for the Oxford Union murals, with their Arthurian theme.

There are images of Red House, the home of Morris and his wife Jane for five years, completed to designs by Philip Webb in 1859 with interior decoration by Morris, Webb, Rossetti and Burne-Jones. The experience led to the formation in 1861 of the decorative arts firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company. Items produced by the firm include painted tile panels, for example The Labours of the Months (1862) and Beauty and the Beast (1863), the latter an overmantel designed by Burne-Jones, Morris and Webb for the Surrey home of the artist Myles Birket Foster. Wallpapers include the original ‘Trellis’ design, Morris’ earliest wallpaper; ‘Daisy’, block printed by hand (the plant designs taken from Gerard’s 1590s Herbal), the first to be printed and sold through the company; and the well-known ‘Pomegranate’. In 1875 the company became Morris & Co. A photograph shows the company’s first shop, which opened in 1877 at 449 Oxford Street. 1870s wallpapers, for example ‘Chrysanthemum’, were more elaborate in design, echoed in the textile designs, textile printing blocks for which are on show, as well as woven fabrics and photographs of the workshop premises, which in 1881 moved to Merton Abbey.

The portrait of Morris in his thirties was commissioned by his mother from Charles Fairfax Murray. Furniture includes a music cabinet with painted doors by William de Morgan (c. 1865–70) and an oak settle designed by Webb, with gilt gesso reliefs of putti. The 1885 ‘Woodpecker’ tapestry is the only one Morris designed entirely by himself. Burne-Jones stained glass includes St Cecilia (1897), and cartoons for Samuel and Isaiah (1895) for the Albion Congregational Church, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire.

In 1863 Morris joined the Socialist Democratic Federation, and later founded the Socialist League, which became the Hammersmith Socialist Society. His satchel, used to carry his socialist pamphlets, is on display alongside propagandist texts, the League’s device designed by Walter Crane. In 1890 Morris founded the Kelmscott Press near his house, Kelmscott House, Hammersmith. Its most lavish publication, the magnificent 1896 Works of Chaucer, is on show. Furniture, pottery and other designs of the rising generation of architects, designers and craftsmen of the Arts and Crafts Movement, influenced by Morris, are exhibited, including work by William de Morgan, Ernest Gimson, Sidney Barnsley and C.F.A. Voysey.

First Floor

Up the broad, carved oak staircase at the rear of the Hall, with its pleasing full-length window overlooking the grounds, are rooms displaying Pre-Raphaelite and other paintings: Ford Madox Brown’s study for the head of Chaucer for Chaucer at the Court of Edward III; Burne-Jones’s Stella Vespertina (1880); The Loving Cup (1867), a watercolour by Rossetti; Walter Crane’s Love’s Sanctuary (1870); and Arthur Hughes’ Portrait of Mabel and Ruth Orrinsmith, whose mother had been a decorative painter for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company. Works by Brangwyn include Old Houses, Taormina; Red Dahlias (c. 1932); The Swans (c. 1920); and several etchings. A plain, rectilinear glazed cabinet designed by him contains examples of bold 1930s Brangwynware pottery.

On the other side of the staircase landing are furniture designs by Mackmurdo, including an attractive mirrored overmantel with a gilded wooden framework of recessed mirrored niches for the display of small ceramics. Mackmurdo (1851–1942) was the founder of the Century Guild, which aimed to elevate the status of the applied arts. Another member was Herbert Percy Horne, whose work is also displayed.

77–82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX

Phone:

020-7522 7888

Website:

www.whitechapel.org

Opening times:

Tues–Sun 11:00–18:00, also Thur 11:00–21:00

How to get there:

Tube: Aldgate East

Entry fee:

Free

Additional information:

Café and shop

Founded in 1901, the Whitechapel is a leading venue for modern and contemporary art, with a strong programme of temporary exhibitions. Founded in 1901, the gallery has its origins in the exhibitions of paintings organised by Canon Samuel A. Barnett (1844–1913) and his wife Henrietta (1851–1936) in St Jude’s National Schools in Whitechapel from 1881. Barnett shared the widespread Victorian belief in the civilising power of culture; the exhibitions were intended as a moral education for the citizens of a deprived East End area, as well as to ‘lessen the dead ugliness of their lives’. The Whitechapel’s distinguished Arts and Crafts building, with its arched entrance, was designed in 1897 by Charles Harrison Townsend. The narrow site, with exhibition space on two levels, was internally reorganised in 1982 and there is a current plan to extend into the adjacent old public library building.

On its foundation the Whitechapel staged contemporary British art exhibitions (G.F. Watts, the Pre-Raphaelites) as well as Old Master and international shows. From the mid-50s it became an increasingly important venue for avant-garde art, and today the programme’s emphasis is very much on modern and contemporary British and international works, by emerging artists as well as artists who live and work in the East End.

East Cloisters, 20 Dean’s Yard, Broad Sanctuary, SW1P 3PA

Phone:

020-7222 5152

Website:

www.westminster-abbey.org

Opening times:

Daily 9:30–15:30

How to get there:

Tube: Westminster

Entry fee:

Free

Additional information:

Shop

This small museum, situated off the east side of the cloisters, houses some of the abbey’s most precious treasures. The chief exhibits are the extraordinary and unique group of effigies, in wood and wax, used in medieval and Tudor funeral ceremonies. They include the earliest known likenesses of English monarchs, and are thus of incomparable significance. The earliest effigies date from the 14th century, when wooden images—instead of the actual corpse—were used during the funeral procedures: the effigy would have been used for the lying-in-state, would have been placed on top of the coffin for the journey to the abbey and for the duration of the funeral, and sometimes marked the place of burial in the abbey prior to the erection of the monument. The abbey has 21 effigies, which can be divided into three groups: medieval wooden effigies of monarchs and members of the royal family; later 17th-century wax figures of royal and noble persons, not used during the funeral ceremonial but placed in the abbey as reminders of the deceased, probably near to the place of burial; and later wax figures of ‘celebrities’, tourist attractions which boosted the meagre incomes of the monument guides. In 1841 the abbey authorities moved the waxworks, which they had come to see as distasteful clutter, to the upper floor of the chantry chapel of Abbot John Islip, where they joined the neglected medieval and Tudor figures, known collectively as the ‘Ragged Regiment’. It was not until the early 20th century that interest in them was revived, when the undercroft museum opened. In 1941 the wax figures were moved to safety to Piccadilly Underground station but the medieval effigies remained at the abbey—a fateful decision, for in May of that year the undercroft suffered severe water damage in an air raid. The effigies remained in this sad situation until 1949, when it was noted that many were in a hopeless condition, their stuffed bodies disintegrating and rotten. Those that survive, entire or partial, have undergone a complete restoration campaign.

Wooden Medieval Effigies

The earliest effigy is that of Edward III, which was used at his funeral in 1377, placed on his coffin within a magnificent hearse. The body, which would have been clothed in costly robes provided by the Great Wardrobe, is of carved wood. The head is based on a death mask and is the earliest known likeness of an English monarch. Anne of Bohemia’s carved wooden head, long and thin, is all that remains of her effigy (queen of Richard II, she died at the palace of Sheen in 1394). Also head-only is Elizabeth of York’s effigy, which contemporary accounts indicate was incredibly lifelike. Henry VII’s bust, a painted gesso death mask applied over wood, is a powerfully realistic and skilled likeness (the death mask was the source for Pietro Torrigiano’s celebrated terracotta sculpture of the king at the V&A) but his stuffed body has not survived. Mary Tudor’s effigy was made by her Sergeant Painter Nicholas Lizarde, while Anne of Denmark’s was carved by the skilled sculptor Maximilian Colt, and painted by the artist John de Critz.

Wax Effigies

After the Restoration in 1660 wax effigies were introduced, wax being a medium which offered a more startling likeness. The effigies have wax heads and hands, with painted complexions, wigs of real hair and eyelashes of bristle or canine hair. Their bodies are of stuffed canvas, clothed in contemporary or near contemporary dress and jewels, sometimes in garments which had belonged to them. Charles II stands tall and realistic, in his own Garter Robes and monogrammed undergarments. Frances Theresa Stuart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, ‘La Belle Stuart’, a court beauty who in the 1660s resisted the advances of Charles II, is the best and most compelling waxwork. Commissioned in her will, to be made in wax and to be set up in the abbey in a glass-fronted case, it was made by the professional wax modeller Mrs Goldsmith, who had her own waxworks museum. Installed in the abbey in 1703, the duchess wears her own Coronation robes and has by her side her pet of 40 years, her African parrot, which died a few days after her. If original, it is one of the earliest examples of taxidermy in the country. Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham (d. 1743), a proud stickler for protocol, ordered her effigy before her death and stored it at her house. She wears the robes she wore for the Coronation of Queen Anne in 1704. William III and Mary II’s likenesses were not commissioned by the abbey but were purchased, possibly from Mrs Goldsmith, in 1725. Queen Anne, seated and cumbrous, is based on a death mask but—further evidence of the declining effigy tradition—she was not clothed until 1740.

Later Waxworks

Later wax effigies of national figures arrived at the abbey purely as tourist attractions. William Pitt was made by Mrs Patience Wright from a life sitting in 1775 and set up in the abbey after his burial there. Nelson’s effigy, however, arrived at the abbey in 1806, despite the fact that he was buried at St Paul’s Cathedral. Made by Catherine Andras, Queen Charlotte’s official modeller in wax, it is based on a portrait by Hoppner. Nelson wears his own clothes and the shoe buckles he wore at Trafalgar.

Other Exhibits

Among the other exhibits in the museum are a bronze relief portrait of Sir Thomas Lovell by Pietro Torrigiano (c. 1516–20); and stained glass panels (c. 1250–70), almost all that remains of the glass which once adorned Henry III’s abbey. There are also two carved alabaster reliefs by Grinling Gibbons and Arnold Quellin from the high altar of James II’s Roman Catholic chapel at Whitehall Palace, smartly dismantled on the accession of the Protestant William and Mary in 1688. Other sculptures from the altarpiece, also by Quellin, now forlorn and much weathered, are in the nearby College Garden (open Tues–Thur 10–4 in winter; 10–6 in summer).

49 City Road, Islington, EC1Y 1AU

Phone:

020-7253 2262

Website:

www.wesleyschapel.org.uk

Opening times:

Mon–Sat 10:00–16:00, Sun 12:30–13:45

How to get there:

Tube: Old Street

Entry fee:

Free

Additional information:

Shop

John Wesley (1703–91), the founder of Methodism, lived in this Georgian town house on the City Road from 1779 until his death. The tour starts in the basement Kitchen, where the original table can still be seen, and proceeds first into the Documents Room, formerly the scullery. Displayed here are Wesley’s glasses and spectacles, along with other personal belongings such as his travelling gown, collar and preaching gown, shoes, nightcap and walking stick. A fanciful portrait by Frank C. Salisbury, painted in 1932, taken from the small authentic bust by Enoch Wood, commemorates the union in that year of the Methodist churches. A teapot given to Wesley by Josiah Wedgwood can be seen, along with the chair in which Wesley presided at the first Methodist conference at the Foundry in 1744, and part of the tree from Winchelsea under which he preached his last sermon in the open air on 7th October 1790. Wesley’s Bedroom, where he died on 2nd March 1791, contains all his original furniture. Only the rope-sprung bed—of the common type at the time, from which derives the expression ‘sleep tight’—is a replica. Off one corner is the Prayer Room, known as the ‘Powerhouse of Methodism’, where every morning at 4.30am Wesley awaited his orders from God. His maid had to light the small fire an hour earlier. His Study can also be seen, where as well as on spiritual well-being he also concentrated on physical cures. His belief in a healthy lifestyle is demonstrated by his exercise horse, and his interest in alternative therapies by his electric shock machine, used to deaden the nerves of minor aches and pains. An original cockfighter’s chair can be seen, given to him by a man who had renounced his participation in the sport. Visiting preachers were quartered in the Attic, where the movement was nurtured that provided the poor with spiritual sustenance and that has been credited with helping to prevent an 18th-century Republican revolution in Britain.

Next to the house, with a bronze statue of Wesley in front of it, is Wesley’s Chapel, ‘perfectly neat but not fine’, opened on 1st November 1778, retaining its original mahogany pulpit, Communion rail and table. The ceiling is a reconstruction of the original, which was destroyed by fire in 1879. In the crypt is the Museum of Methodism, telling the story of the denomination from its foundation to the present day. Paintings include the Portrait of Peter (1927) by Herbert Beecroft and the Holy Triumph of JW in his Dying (1842) by Marshall Caxton. Wesley is shown in the bedroom here, although it appears considerably larger in order to accommodate the crowd at his bedside. His last words were: ‘Best of all, God is with us’. The roots of Trade Unionism in Methodist chapels is examined here, as well as the preaching of Methodism abroad. There is also the warclub of the excessively cruel Chief Thakombau of Fiji, whose conversion was attributed to the impression made by Mary, wife of the preacher James Calvert. She nursed the chief when he became ill and fearlessly pleaded for the lives of 15 women on the island. Beside it is a Priest’s Bowl, also from Fiji, once used in cannibal ceremonies, given to the Rev. James Calvert on the conversion of the owner. A small display also celebrates Wesley’s brother Charles, who wrote 600 hymns, of which John Wesley is reported to have said ‘some of them must have been good’. Charles and John were two of 19 children. While in the area it is also worth crossing the City Road from Wesley’s House to Bunhill Fields, where their mother Susannah Wesley (d. 1742) is buried, as well as John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, Isaac Watts and William Blake.